


The Last of Our Sea-Sorrow

by wintercarlyle



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternative Timelines, Developing Relationship, F/F, Gen, Multi, Post-Ending, Roadtrip, Sacrifice Arcadia Bay, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 108,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25555684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercarlyle/pseuds/wintercarlyle
Summary: After the storm, Max and Chloe drive across the country, pursued by regret and the ghosts of the other versions of themselves left to suffer in other timelines. Chloe wrestles with her feelings for Max and her still-fresh grief over Rachel, all while a storm greater than the one they fled brews in the heavens. Pricefield, grief and loss, awkward romance, weird time travel, etc.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, Rachel Amber/Chloe Price
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	1. What's Past is Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, readers.
> 
> This is a story about Max and Chloe after the events of the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending. I know, original, right? It's, pretty explicitly, a Pricefield story.
> 
> However, I'm working within the rough constraints of the Life is Strange canon, at least from where the story begins. That means - no kiss at the end. Max and Chloe still haven't officially confessed their feelings when this story starts.
> 
> While this is a Pricefield story, it's also, in some ways, an Amberprice story. I'm a big fan of Life is Strange: Before the Storm, and this story treats (at least one possible version of that game) as canon. Where LiS and Lis:BtS differ on canon questions, I'm going to side with Before the Storm because of the importance of those few days to this story. Chloe is still dealing with learning about Rachel, and I don't think those feelings just vanish because Max is back in her life.
> 
> This is a story about Max and Chloe, but it's also a story about Rachel, and about grief, regret, love, and going on a long road-trip with the person who saved you from the death you were probably supposed to have.
> 
> And it's also a story about those Maxs and Chloes that Life is Strange leaves behind in other timelines, forced to live the rest of their lives wondering if some other version of them got a better deal.
> 
> One more thing: in between every couple chapters, there's a short interlude in the style of a Shakespeare script. The meaning behind these will be revealed in time, but if you're confused, don't worry about it. It becomes an actual story right after that.
> 
> Feedback is appreciated, and I hope you like it!
> 
> P.S. I am re-posting this from my other account on that other major fanfiction site.

An ISLAND, amidst a STORM.

[enter PROSPERA – 19, magnetic, blonde-haired, attired in magical robes and armed with a staff. A hood encircles her head, and upon her face is emblazoned a dragon mask of glittering diamonds.]

PROSPERA: Welcome, dear strangers, to my lonesome rock.

Cast adrift in this wretched, roiling sea.

It's been many moons 'ere I've seen a soul,

So rest your weary hearts upon my shores

And heed the words with which I drown your ears.

For such tales are not often understood

Save with the fanciful minds of children.

[enter RAVEN, alighting on a crooked tree branch behind her.]

RAVEN: Caw.

PROSPERA: Hark now, we are joined by a laughing thing

Who plays such tricks upon all souls on earth

That the devil himself must cede the game.

RAVEN: Caw.

[PROSPERA looks at the reader and smiles.]

PROSPERA: Our tale does tell of souls entwined in storms,

One ill at ease with words or darkness leaves

Her friend to suffer at the edge of hell.

Wildfires rage and many souls are lost

To lust and hate and greed below the earth.

RAVEN: Caw.

PROSPERA: Hold on, good friend, my tale is not yet done.

[enter DEER, unnoticed]

PROSPERA: One girl fated to die from Caliban,

Lost in shadow and smoke and forgotten.

One girl who bent fate into something new,

And brought The Tempest down upon her home.

Now I cannot speak ill of her, despite

My love for the girl who was loved by Death.

They drowned the Bay in salt and screams and then

Left everything aside to bleed alone.

The curtains fell upon their tale at last,

And you all thought their story ended there.

RAVEN: Caw.

PROSPERA: True, true, no story ends without the last

Third of the act the great teachers once taught.

Rising action, climax, and then the fall.

First act – there was the girl who lost her way

In love and joy and fire's scorching arms.

Then next – the friend returned and powers 'gained.

Secrets revealed, corpses unearthed, even

Time and space rent in a thousand new ways.

And now – the tale of how the souls survived

A year of storms and love and bitter dreams.

Their dalliance with time has not yet ceased;

Their fates not yet entrenched one way for good.

A lifetime, five years, five days, and then…what?

[PROSPERA whispers, inaudibly, to RAVEN. RAVEN flies away, out into the ocean.]

[end Scene]


	2. The Direful Spectacle of the Wreck

The whales were dead.

For some reason, it was the only fucking thing she could think about.

Other people were dead. Hundreds, at least. Maybe thousands. But in the early hours of October 13, 2013, driving north on Route 5 out of Oregon, all Chloe Price could think about were the dead whales. All those enormously weird creatures, beautiful and terrifying, lay dead on the beaches of Arcadia Bay. Or, they had, until the storm came and destroyed everything. She'd seen one of them crashed into a bait shop on the drive out of town. It felt especially _wrong,_ seeing something so obviously ruined and so far from where it belonged. A bloated corpse of something wonderful, laying in a heap of trash that once meant something…

_No, not there, Chloe, don't go there._

Back in reality, another car zoomed past her, the headlights too bright, distorted in the rain. It had been raining all day, and Chloe pushed down the fear that it would never stop.

Thinking about whales was all she could really do at this point. There had been music, earlier, but with Max trying to sleep she thought it would be best to turn it off. The girl needed it. Chloe felt the guilt already inside her, clawing up her throat like so many drunken nights at the edge of a toilet. She was alive, and time itself was bending in on itself to fix that problem. She was supposed to die. She was ready to die. But Max picked her, over everyone else. Over Kate, and Warren, and her other friends, and the children and parents and neighbors and hundreds or thousands of people who made up a living, breathing town…

_Is this what you wanted, Rachel? Was this you? Were you so pissed off at this town that you had to wipe it off the map?_

_Think about whales, Chloe. Think about whales._

_Eubalaena japonica_ – the North Pacific right whale. Could be only 400 left alive. Now there were even fewer.

"You don't wanna see what the _wrong_ whales look like…"

Max had groaned at that joke back when they were kids. Chloe didn't feel like joking now. Arcadia Bay, shithole that it was, was dead, or dying, or hurt so badly that it didn't matter, and all so she…

_Fuck, Chloe, don't think about that. Not now. You have more important priorities._

She let herself glance quickly to the passenger seat. Max Caulfield - asleep with her head lolling, her face streaked with dried tears. The rain pattered against the windshield, and she flicked the wipers. American Rust protested, but eventually started cleaning the glass. It was still dark and hard to see, even with the lights turned to the high beams. She would have to replace them, just like she would have to replace the old car. It was a shitty box when she'd found it three years ago and built it back up. She'd broken too much, too quickly, and it felt good to find something that the rest of the world had cast aside and prove that it was still worth existing.

There were a lot of good memories about this car. But not about the day it'd first roared back to life.

She wanted to talk to Max, about the whales, or about anything, but she let her sleep. She would have enough to deal with in the waking world.

Max Caulfield. Her Max.

She remembered writing all those letters to Max years ago, back in the long stretch of five years without her best friend. She knew Max kept a journal for herself, but Chloe could only do that if she pretended Max could see all the details of her life. She hadn't been kind to her in the letters – but she had no reason to be. Back then she'd hated Max. Right when she needed her the most, she'd left her alone, just like her father, just like everyone else. Alone to face the gaping wound in her life, the petty smugness of her step-douche, the teachers who didn't understand and wouldn't care anyway, those stupid Vortex Club assholes who thought they knew Rachel but wouldn't stop scrawling graffiti about her in the same places they took shits…

Those late nights crying, curled up in a ball, her phone in her hand. One night – a particularly bad night – she'd texted Max, writing only "Max." No response. She'd stayed up all night just waiting for that little glow, just one bright message that would tell her that her best friend hadn't abandoned her for a glamorous life in the Emerald City. That she cared. That she hadn't ran away when things got scary.

Chloe hated her. She knew that, when – if – she ever saw her again, she wouldn't be able to control that hate. Wouldn't be able to stop the dam from breaking. She would let out all the hurt in that signature Chloe Price snarl. Max would know what she'd done, and regret it for the rest of her life.

But then she saw Max Caulfield by the cars in the Blackwell parking lot, being threatened by Nathan _fucking_ Prescott and all she could think about was the gun in his hand and what he'd do to her old friend.

As it turns out, none of it mattered. Max's sins had been forgiven, right there, without a word. She felt it in her chest. That caught breath. That shock of something good, hitting her whole body at once. A shock she hadn't felt since Rachel Amber wiped away her tears in the junkyard.

Max was back, and even if Rachel was gone, and David tyrannized the house, and her future would end in a drug overdose or a shitty job at a shitty convenience store, it would be better, because her best friend was in her life again. That's what she felt at that moment. Not anger or hate or pettiness. Just relief. And love.

_She let them all die for me._

Why? They had been childhood best friends, and then they'd gone through all the hell of those five days…could she really feel the same way?

" _I'll always be with you." She said that. Always._

_Whales, Chloe, think about whales. That's easier. That's better._

* * *

The gas station was mostly empty, with the only other person in sight the old man behind the cash register, aimlessly flicking through a crossword puzzle. Max was still asleep as Chloe filled up the car with another gulp of gasoline. She would have to make what little she had stretch, enough to get Max to her parents, at least. That was their plan, or, well, Chloe's plan. Max hadn't spoken too mcuh since the storm hit. She had cried, and thrown up several times on the side of the road. Chloe had ached to see that, had tried to her best to hold her friend when she could. This was all too much for any of them to process.

Inside she spent a few more precious dollars on some sodas and a few bags of chips. Every other minute she turned back to look at Max, asleep in the car. An old radio blared updates about the massive storm that had leveled Arcadia Bay.

"Some storm," said the old man, putting Chloe's dollars in the cash register and counting change.

"Y-yeah."

"Destroyed a whole town…just awful. Feels like judgment day."

Chloe just nodded and left the store, the ring of the bell echoing behind her. She thought she could still hear the voice on the radio, tolling the dead. All other sounds faded away.

_Rachel. Mom. All the kids in Blackwell. Even Frank, even David. The Prescotts. All of them, dead._

They could have checked for survivors. They could have waited until people began emerging from wreckage, because of course people had to emerge from wreckage at some point. But then they had walked by the Two Whales…

"It was a fire," Max had told her. A few sparks still jumped from broken wires, but everything else was blackened ash. Chloe had rushed towards it, with nothing but the thought of her mother inside, but Max pulled her back, eyes wide.

"Don't, please."

She'd wheeled her away, both of them in tears, back into her old junker. They stopped searching for survivors after that.

Had Max rewound that moment, played it out several times to see if it was worth letting her step closer? Had Chloe stepped on something and exploded? Or had she seen something under all the debris that she wouldn't want to?

She knew about Max's power. How a week ago, her old forgotten friend had come back into her shitty life, claiming that Chloe had been killed in a bathroom, that she'd been given time powers and had saved her. Visions of a deadly storm. Headaches and nosebleeds. In the next few days, Max Caulfield would see Chloe die several more times, in several other timelines. Did those other worlds still exist? Were there a hundred other Maxs grieving a hundred dead Chloes?

Afterwards, when the sky shone bright again and the rain faded away into a horrible memory, they'd gotten in Chloe's car and just started driving away. They'd killed the town to be together, so there was no use staying here, pretending they could have it both ways. They'd been almost giddy as they drove away, somehow, as if some fucking bizarre brain mechanism had kicked in and kept them from truly understanding what happened.

It wasn't a new feeling for Chloe. She knew what it was like when you made some decision you knew would fuck you over, something really bad, and the moment passed, and you just felt…like it didn't matter what else came. You'd already screwed up royally. What more could fate do to you?

She remembered a Saturday morning in Wells' office, over three years ago, with her mother and the Ambers. She remembered the feeling of success so close, and then the knowledge of what it would cost to stay silent. She threw herself onto the fire, gladly, for love. She knew she would do it again, knew that maybe Max would do it this time. She just hadn't counted that Max would throw the fire on others, for love. For her.

* * *

They stopped for the night at a motel off the side of the highway. Maybe she could've drove longer, pushed herself to get Max back to her family sooner, but she was driving tired, and those two did not mix. The irony of dying in a car accident after surviving so much might've been funny to her in those dark days before Max came back, if it was happening to someone else. But the dagger of pain that shot through her at just the thought of Max dead kept her serious. Max had been the hero for so long. It was time for Chloe Price to step up. Tomorrow they'd make it into Seattle, and Max would be with her family again. Maybe the spell would break. Maybe, surrounded by her old life, she'd just want to return to normal. They'd be friends still, but this feeling, this overwhelming sense that they had to be together, that would fade.

But what if she just asked her, just told her the truth…

_How would that be fair? Of course she'd say she feels the same – she killed everyone just for you. She couldn't have you mad at her. But that doesn't mean she'd be telling the truth. Imagine, years of her and you together, her faking it, just to justify her actions._

"Fuck," she whispered. She remembered the taste of Max's lips on hers, just a few days ago in that last bright perfect morning. For the hundredth time, she wished _she'd_ had the time powers, and she could've rewound and rewound and rewound that moment. She would still feel surprised, still feel that spark of joy at a wish she hadn't let herself dream of coming true.

But she couldn't just come out and tell Max how she felt, not with everything that'd happened. Not with this much weight behind everything.

She leaned her head into her fists and let herself cry, just for a few seconds, just quiet enough that Max wouldn't hear her.

A few minutes later, her tears wiped away, Chloe let herself out of the car and walked around the side door. She opened it and shook Max softly. She shifted and blinked slowly.

"Chloe…"

Chloe grinned automatically. "Alas, the day has come! The beast has woken from its thousand year slumber, the kingdom is doomed!"

Max smiled, but Chloe recognized what kind of smile that was. The one you know others want to see, even if it's a lie. She had tried to use it enough times in those few months after her dad died, before giving it up completely.

Max stepped out of the car, zipping her hoodie up and rubbing her arms. She sniffed, her eyes still puffy from sleep. "Where are we?"

"At only the finest motel in all of Washington. You should sleep. Like, for real, on a real bed. Tomorrow we'll be at your 'rents."

Max's wan smile broke into the most pitiful look of concern Chloe had ever seen. It was so sad, but she couldn't help feeling a flutter of something good. Someone cared about her.

"God, Chloe, I've been sleeping this whole time and you've just been driving? I would've taken a turn…you're the one who needs to sleep."

"Nah, I'm an expert in the art of insomnia. You saw my bedroom, right? It was literally written above my wall. This is _my_ super-power." She yawned, mostly on purpose.

Max smiled – smaller, weaker, but real, this time. "Whatever you say, Chloe Price."

Chloe made an extravagant bow. "Your chamber awaits, Maxine the Great. I have prepared it exactly as you like it. Only the most exquisite used sheets. Only the most terrifying old television imaginable. And the rust in the bathroom….ah, truly it's…"

Max hugged her, there in the parking lot. Chloe felt her sink deeper, resting, truly resting, in her arms. Despite everything, it felt right, like this was how things had always been meant to happen.

_Ha. Talk about irony. This is exactly what wasn't supposed to happen._

"Wow Max, it really wasn't that great a joke…"

"I know."

"Then what's this for?"

She looked up – _fuck she's beautiful_ – and smiled. "I could listen to your terrible jokes all day. Just hearing your voice…you don't know how many times I wanted that, in every reality."

Chloe felt the heat in her face. She knew Max loved her – Arcadia Bay was testament to that – but did she… _love_ her? Chloe hadn't even been conscious of how she really felt, until just a few days ago, when she dared Max to kiss her. It was a stupid thought, something triggered by seeing her in those clothes, the same ones Rachel had worn on that night where they first kissed after the Tempest. It had been a joke, a throwaway attempt at something that – of course – couldn't happen. Max was just her friend. Max liked that Warren kid. She'd never talked about liking girls before.

But neither had Chloe, not with Max, not seriously. She hadn't even thought about it herself until Rachel... Still, she tried to leave the little hints for Max. Telling her the truth, how she'd loved Rachel. The flirting. She should have been able to piece together the clues. And you didn't sacrifice hundreds of people for someone you weren't…you know, in love with, right?

_Jealous, selfish Chloe, back again. Your mother is dead and all you can think about is getting your best friend to fall in love with you! You don't deserve it even if she does feel the same. Your mother died in flames in that same shitty diner and all you could do was run away. You're a fuckup high school dropout. You've always been a fuckup. You already got one love in your shitty life, and she was a liar._

"Be careful what you wish for. I think you've just given me express permission to show you all the incredible wit I've developed in the past five years. I'm not sure you can handle it. I'm a regular Billy Shakespeare."

Max laughed. "Oh, you know Shakespeare now?"

Chloe grinned and spread her hands wide. " _O brave new world, that has such people in it_!"

Max's mouth opened in genuine surprise. "You know _The Tempest_?"

"Hell yeah I know The Tempest. Magical wizards, captured spirits, wildly implausible love stories – that's my shit."

"I'm just surprised."

Chloe raised her eyebrows. "Oh I see how it is. 'Chloe Price, the punk kid who doesn't read. She's not cultured, I bet she spends all her time high and watching cartoons.'"

Another beautiful laugh. "Wowser, your impression of me is spot-on."

"We've got to do something about 'wowser.'"

"As long as we do something about 'amazeballs.' But seriously, I just thought you were the science type."

"Ah, I guess I was, back in the old days. Don't expect I'll be going to school now. Science doesn't mean jack shit to me anymore."

She felt Max stiffen in her arms.

_Fuck, Chloe, you had to ruin it._

"You're right…I…what do we do after this? How can we…"

The tears fought their way past Max's defenses. Her shoulders heaved in a series of quiet sobs.

"No, no, Max, come on, let's go to bed, let's not think about this…"

They held each other in the parking lot, lit by the lights of Chloe's junker, clinging to each other like the storm was still raging.

* * *

Thirty minutes later they were in bed, their bags on chairs, the phosphorescent glow of the streetlights outside filtering in through the blinds. The dull whine of passing cars mingled with the sound of rain pattering against the window. The soft songs of one of Max's indie bands played quietly from her phone, resting on the table.

They were lying together under the thin sheet, watching the fan loop slowly in a spiral. Neither could sleep, not yet. Chloe could only imagine the thoughts spinning in Max's head. Guilt, confusion, sadness…and whatever else having magical time powers did to your brain. She hadn't asked her yet if she'd used her powers recently. Did she just stop using them completely? Or had things gone differently? God, she wished she had those powers, just now, just so she could roll over and tell her how she really felt, and then rewind if things went badly.

"Thank you, Chloe."

"What? Dude, c'mon, I should be the one thanking you. You know that. Shit, it's all I can think about."

Max turned over, her head resting on her hand. "Seriously, Chloe, thank you. All of this…I don't know how I'm going to handle it. Probably not well. But I have you, and I meant what I said. I'm never going to leave you." She reached out and grabbed Chloe's hand.

Even without powers, time slowed down. Suddenly she felt incredibly hot underneath the sheet. Was her breathing always this loud? How did anyone stand to be with her when her heartbeat was this audible?

"T-thanks, Max. You'd better not."

Max turned around, her hand still holding Chloe's, and stared back up at the ceiling. "What do we do now?"

"I don't know."

"Am I supposed to go to college? How do I just walk into a class and pretend like it matters?"

"That's what I did every day at BlackHell. Pretending like anything mattered."

"Oh. I guess I didn't think…"

"It's okay, don't freak. It's just…you live with shit. You wake up, remind yourself that things still suck ass, and then you go to class. And you find awesome fucking shows in secret venues when you can, and you hang with the few people who don't screw you over, and you find what little bits of happiness you can. Until something…actually good comes along."

She let herself squeeze Max's hand. Max was so small, then, under the thin sheet, hunched into herself. Weighted down by the dead. She needed to sleep, and she wasn't going to be able to if all she had to think about were nightmares. Chloe had so many questions, about powers and about the future and about Max's feelings towards her, but they would have to wait.

Max smiled, then turned back to her. "We never talked about why you were…why you left Blackwell."

"Are you sure you wanna talk about this stuff? I mean, I wouldn't blame you. Shit's fucked up."

Max paused and took a deep breath. "I think I have to. I've screwed up so much already. Everything I've done in the last week has been to save you. I should know more about what I've bought." There was a long pause, and then she said, hurriedly, "I'm sorry, that didn't come out…that's not…"

"Max, it's really okay. I get it. Talk about what you want and what you can."

"If you're sure…I'd like to hear it."

"Yeah, fine, it's a sad sordid tale. Abandon hope, ye who enter here."

"Consider hope abandoned, Captain Bluebeard. Sail on."

The fan spun. The rain pattered. She remembered a different night, walking along suburban streets in the glow of the streetlamps and the high of a show well done.

"I…I got expelled for skipping class. And weed. And shitting on Wells."

"What?"

"Metaphorically." She laughed. "I'm full of shit, but not that way."

"So, Chloe Price, the delinquent? Skipping to get high? When was this?"

"2010? I was sixteen."

"Wait, so you haven't been in school for three years?"

She shrugged. "I guess so. High school dropout life isn't too memorable."

"So what happened? How'd you get caught?"

"I guess…Max, this is all tied up with R-Rachel. I don't…it's still hard to talk about."

"Oh Chloe, you don't have to…"

"Nah, you're right. We should talk about this shit. We've been through worse. Yeah, I knew Rachel before this, but only in the way you know the popular kids."

Max propped herself up on her shoulder. "I thought you said you knew each other since you were 14."

"Well, sure, technically. I knew who she was. People always tell – told – us we were obviously such good friends, and we'd just stretch it a little. Technically true. But it wasn't until 16 that we really…Max, until this week it was the most insane few days of my life."

"Chloe, you don't have to talk about it, really. But I'm here for you if you do. You can tell me anything."

_I loved Rachel and I still love her but I love you too? I feel like shit because I care more about you knowing that than everything else that's happened?_

"Max, she was…she was my angel. I loved her. Like..."

_Rachel Amber at the Firewalk show, drunk and beautiful and alive._

_Rachel Amber in the train car, music in their ears._

_Rachel Amber burning down the tree, her screams sounding through the forest._

_Rachel Amber – radiant as Prospera – begging her Ariel to trust her._

_Rachel Amber in the streets, kissing her, their grand plan beginning._

_Rachel Amber waking up in her bed so many times, holding her when she cried._

_Rachel Amber in a hole in the earth, rotting._

"I really loved her. We were together for years."

She tried and failed to fight the tears back.

"Oh Chloe…"

Max shifted closer, wrapping her arms around Chloe and nestling her face against her hair.

"Max…"

"It's so fucked up. All of this. It's so not fair for you."

"God Max, it's not fair for either of us!"

Max breathed in slowly. "I know, Chloe, but I…I should have been there for you! It wasn't my decision to move to Seattle but I could have at least kept in touch…it's just, I didn't know what to say, and then I felt guiltier every time until…"

"Max."

Chloe turned towards Max, their faces almost touching. She was extremely conscious of Max's hand in hers, her arm around her. Her breath hot against her ear.

"I forgive you. You're here now. You saved my goddamn life. You cared about me when no one else did. I've fucked up so much in my life and you're the one good thing."

_God, Chloe, don't…_

"I…I love you…"

_Fuck, what did I do?_

In the dark, it was hard to make out the details of Max's face. She was there, staring at Chloe, her eyes wide. Chloe's heart hammered. Her mouth went dry.

_I don't want to ruin this, the way I ruin everything else in my life._

The fan whirred. Seconds passed. Blood pounded in her ears.

But Max still held her. Maybe even a little bit tighter.

"Fuck it…um…do I have to say it again? Like, I really _love_ you. I have for…for years, I think. And you've been here for me and you've saved me so many times and I just couldn't not say it, you know? I know you might not feel the same but I just…I had to say it."

There had never been a more awkward confession of love ever spoken, she knew. She braced herself for the inevitable flustered refusal.

Suddenly Max's hand was on her neck, and she was kissing her and she was so warm and right there and she was kissing her and she tasted tears and a smile and the sound of her pounding heart drowned out even the rain.

A few moments later, they broke. Chloe couldn't stop herself from laughing, nervously. "So is that…"

"Yes. I love you too, Chloe Price."

_I don't deserve this. How the hell is this real? How the hell does she love me? I've fucked up everything in my life. Everything I've touched has turned to shit, so how, how does this happen?_

"Oh. Good."

Max laughed, her eyes shining in the darkness.

_Please let her keep laughing. Please never let me go a day without hearing her laugh._

"Good? That's all the wit from Chloe Price? I thought there'd be some sonnets, maybe?"

"Don't push your luck." She was crying. Goddamn it, she was crying.

They both were.

_Oh._

They kissed again, for longer this time, and Chloe wrapped her arms around Max, holding tighter, drinking her in again - the one thing that mattered. She felt jittery, like she'd swallowed days' worth of caffeine. There was no way she was falling asleep tonight. This was real. Max Caulfield loved her. And she wasn't going away.

_Rachel, I'm sorry…but I hope you're okay with this. I hope, wherever you are, if you're anywhere, that you'll see that we're happy, and let us have this._

_I loved you, and I always will, but I love her too._

_I love her so much._


	3. Another Storm Brewing

_Tap._

_Tap._

It was still night when Chloe opened her eyes in the motel room. The bright light of the neon sign outside filtered through the window, illuminating Max beside her, finally asleep. She breathed quickly, restless even when she wasn't awake. They had been holding hands when they finally drifted off, clustered close together like they did when they were kids. It felt different this time. She held Max's hand, trying not to wake her.

She felt the familiar urge to smoke, but she didn't want to leave Max. Besides, it was still raining outside in big fat drops that pattered against the window like hail. The air was wet and cold.

Her phone said 4:13 AM. So it was October 14th now. They would probably make it into Seattle and to Max's parents by the end of the day. And then this chapter in their lives would end.

Chloe could see the predictable turn of events in her head, flowing past like a slideshow of pictures. The Caulfields would have a tearful reunion, and they would wrap the two of them in blankets and give them tea while they tried both to ask what happened and avoid talking at all. Chloe would stay there for a while, maybe a few months, maybe they'd offer her a place until she could find her own. They'd both have nights of sadness, maybe see counselors, have to do some interviews as survivors of a vicious storm. And then…Max would go off to college, and Chloe would find some shitty job to pay rent. She wouldn't last long. And then Max would join some club and meet someone else and slowly they'd drift apart, and Max would wonder why she saved this particular fuckup anyway.

_Tap._

_Tap._

That didn't sound like rain.

There was a raven at the window. It tapped again. Chloe looked at it and it cocked its head. The raven tapped the window again, then flew away with a squawk.

"What the…"

Suddenly Max's hand clenched down tightly. It felt…warm. Hot, almost, like the pressure around it was different than the rest of the room. The veins bulged.

"Max, are you okay?"

Max's eyes opened.

They were glowing pure blue – the whites and irises all absorbed in the light. Her back arched, and all around them the air grew hot and red. Chloe felt pressure bearing down on her temples, like a massive hand was squeezing tightly around her head.

"M-max? Max, what the fuck?"  
Blue tendrils swam from Max's hand, weaving around them both like snakes made of smoke. The pain in Chloe's head intensified. She felt the hot drip of a nosebleed forming.

"Max, wake up! Shit, Max, your powers are…they're doing…uh…something…"

Max said nothing as the blue light grew stronger. The tendrils spun around in elegant swirls, like fish jetting through pure water in an aquarium. They circled Chloe's arm, climbing up past her tattoo and sweeping around her shoulder. It would have been beautiful if it wasn't fucking terrifying.

_I could let go._

_I should let go._

Chloe didn't let go, and the light swam up her face and poured into her eyes, and everything grew bright white.

* * *

She was in a dorm room.

The room was dark and messy, the walls recently emptied of decorations, judging from all the torn bits of paper and tape still stuck to the pale white stone. Piles of dirty clothes lay strewn across the floor. There were papers fanned out on a table, and a dead plant in the corner.

And Max, curled up on a bed, asleep, still in jeans and her hoodie.

"Max?"

No response.

She reached to shake her, only to see her hand pass through Max like light.

"Holy fucking shit!"

She raised her hand to her face. It still looked…normal. She could touch herself without phasing through. She tried brushing her hand against the bed, but it failed too.

"Okay, Chloe, this is hella fucked up."

She turned towards the mirror on Max's wall, stepping silently closer. It was eerie making no noise, not from footsteps or breathing or the dull pounding of blood in your ears. She reached the mirror and looked for her reflection.

She wasn't there. Only a bright blue butterfly, lazily flapping its wings.

"Chloe…"

"Max?"

This Max blinked and pushed herself off the bed, staring ahead. Her eyes, red from tears and ringed with lack of sleep, darted back and forth. Chloe ached just looking at her.

_Max is here in Blackwell, and I'm just…_

_Am I dead? Did she…oh god, she went back, she changed it somehow, Arcadia Bay is safe and I'm…_

"What do you want?" asked Max, crying. "I took your fucking powers, and they ruined everything!"

"M-Max, it's me…"

Max stood up, brushing her hands forward, passing through Chloe like she was shooing away a bug, which, Chloe supposed, she thought she was. Chloe stepped back.

"What do you want with me? I'm not using the powers anymore, I don't think I can!"

There would be time to process what was going on later. Right now, Max was hurting, and she needed help. Chloe walked away from the bed and looked at the pile of junk of Max's desk. There were notebooks in one corner, a few food wrappers, a box of tampons, several old guitar strings, a bottle of melatonin…and an old shoebox labeled CP.

_Fuck._

Chloe reached down to push upon the box, but her hands passed through it.

"I should have expected that," she muttered. Max didn't respond. "I guess you can't hear me. Makes sense. I'm a ghost now. Fuck, I never thought they were real…"

She remembered, as if through a haze, something she had never realized she'd forgotten. A dream, some years back, of her father and her roasting marshmallows in the bright glow of a burning car. A wildfire looming in the distance. It had felt so real, just like this felt right now. A dream? Or something else?

In the mirror, the blue butterfly was poised atop the shoebox. Chloe moved a hand to the left, and the butterfly shifted.

Max shuffled over. This time she didn't look angry. She was still crying, but her eyes were wider, shifting between joy, sadness, and confusion in equal measure.

"Chloe? Is that…is that you?"

"Yes, Max, it's me! I'm…I guess I'm dead, but I'm here!"

"Are you…here with me?"

"Fuck, Max, yes I am! I don't have any idea what the hell is happening, but I'm here!"

Max held her head and sat back down on the bed. "No, no, Max, you're going crazy, you're going crazy…" She curled back in on herself and shut her eyes. "Just try to sleep, just try to sleep."

_Sleep._

Chloe reached for the melatonin bottle and stopped, letting her hand hover over it. Eventually she heard a creaking from the bed.

"Did you…did you hear me?"

"Yes!"

She was so close now. She seemed smaller, bent by sadness and sleep deprivation. A shell of a woman, the last spark in her eyes dancing in a heavy wind. Chloe recognized enough of this look in the other Max, the one who had sacrificed Arcadia Bay for her. But even she didn't look this defeated.

_Was it really even harder for her to sacrifice me?_

"Chloe, if that's you…I'm so, so sorry. I thought this was the right choice…and I'm glad that everyone's okay but…it's too hard without you! I can't even tell anyone, and half the time I don't even know any of it really happened. What if I just made all of that up? I miss you so much…"

None of this was fair. Max was broken in both timelines. These two Maxs, both in love with her, both unable to stop themselves from imagining the other choice. And for what? Why her? Why did the universe give Max powers only to punish her for using them? And why did everything revolve around that one moment, that one death? Her death? She wanted to hold Max, to whisper to her that she was here, that – in some reality – she still lived. Her hands passed through.

"FUCK!" she screamed. No one responded. She could only watch, unable to even touch anything, touch anyone. During all of this past week, she'd been powerless. She'd been so close to Rachel the whole time, and yet she hadn't been there in time to save her. Max had to talk down her friend from killing herself, and where was fuckup Chloe Price? Nowhere. Everything they did, all they accomplished, was because Max had powers. Time powers, yes, but even more than that. Max tried to do the right thing. She followed her gut and explored what needed to be discovered, but she thought about it first. She didn't flare up like Chloe. Max Caulfield was a hero even before all of this.

Even when Chloe had been through shit before, three years ago with Rachel, she hadn't done anything. It was all Rachel, her Prospera, commanding her Ariel and pulling her into her schemes. Her whole life she'd been nothing but an agent of her own destruction. She couldn't do anything else. She was powerless, and now, as a ghost, or shade, or whatever the fuck was happening, she would be unable to even speak to people or touch things. The ultimate fitting punishment.

She screamed again, something wordless, something containing a fraction of her feelings. Still nothing. Not an echo.

"Are you Chloe? You're not just a butterfly. You can't just be that. I used your picture to do this, to save them all. You were there where this all started. And then at Chloe's funeral?"

 _My funeral? If_ I'm _the butterfly, how was I there when I was alive? And this is the first time this has ever happened, so how could I be at my funeral? Fucking time travel makes no fucking sense._

"I thought…I know it doesn't make sense, but I thought it was you, somehow. That you remembered that week, that you knew I…loved you, even if you never knew that in this reality."

"I do, Max. I do. God, you have no idea."

The edges of the room began to peel, like a photo tossed into a fire. Everything she saw was peppered with burn marks and spots. Holes in her vision, looking out into an emptiness. Chloe tried to scream, but her voice came out distorted.

"Xam! No gniog s'tahw? Xam?"

Everything spun backwards. Max crying in front of the butterfly, Max walking backward, Max waving her arms to scare it away, Max on the edge of her bed, Max curling back up.

It grew faster and faster, and the burn marks in Chloe's vision widened into gaping holes in the fabric. But the darkness behind these gashes flickered and changed as well. She saw Max at the side of the train tracks, horror and sorrow etched on her face, as ambulances swarmed and Joyce and David cried into each other's arms. In another, Max was tied to a chair, her head lolled back and her eyes vacant. For some reason David lay on the ground in a crumpled heap, blood coating his head. In another, Max was in the Two Whales Diner as the storm raged. She huddled underneath the counter with Warren, Joyce…and Frank?

Sorrow and death followed them both, in every image.

In every reality.

More images flashed through those gaps, faster and faster, each more incomprehensible than the last. Max in the bathroom at Blackwell, her stomach wet with blood, Caliban over her with a gun in his hands. A train on fire, trailing hundreds of black ravens like smoke. A dark roiling sky, illuminated with lightning, seconds before an enormous whale fell from above.

Rachel Amber treading water in the Blackwell swimming pool at night, her Prospera mask covering her face. She leaned in closer to Chloe's ear, her eyes glowing blue.

"It was mine art, when I arrived and heard thee, that made gape the pine and LET THEE OUT."

The holes widened as sharp pains rolled through Chloe's head. Her eyes were burning like cigarettes snuffed out into paper.

* * *

"Chloe?"

Her eyes opened.

A spinning fan. White stucco walls. An old rusted television. And Max Caulfield, beautiful in the faint morning glow, shaking her awake.

"Max? Oh god, Max!" She leapt up and nearly tackled Max back onto the bed, holding her tightly.

_She's real, she's alive, I'm alive, I can touch her, I'm not a ghost, I'm real and I'm alive and we're here!_

_It must have been a dream. Just a terrible, awful, heartbreaking dream._

"Thanks for the morning grope," said Max, confused but not willing to let the opportunity for a joke slide by. Chloe looked at her, unable to stop grinning. Max looked away, pleased but embarrassed.

"What?"

"Just enjoying waking up to see you, that's all. Max Caulfield, in Chloe Price's bed…who would've predicted that?"

Max blushed a deep red. "Y-yeah…"

Chloe coughed and rubbed the back of her neck. "So…last night. What we talked about. Is that…well, I guess I'm trying to ask if I just dreamed it?"

"N-no, you didn't." Max leaned in and kissed her softly, nervously. She pulled away, looking into Chloe's eyes with the same sort of unconscious grin.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," said Max, looking curious. It was so good to see some expression on her face other than an aching grief.

_Just do this for her, Chloe. You made her make a fucked up choice, and she chose you, so now you'd better make Max Caulfield's life as awesome as possible from here on._

"Back when I…when I dared you to kiss me…did you know? Like, had you thought about us like that before or…"

"Was I crushing on Chloe Price from afar?"

Chloe pulled her back down on the bed. Max laughed as the two fell into each other's arms, faces close.

"Yeah. Well?"

Max looked away for a second, tensing up before she turned back. She took a deep breath.

"I don't think I really let myself think about it. I wasn't crushing on you while I was in Seattle, if that's what you mean. Mostly I just felt guilty. Like a terrible friend."

"Hey Max, that's…I forgive you, alright? You were shitty, but it's okay now."

She kissed Max to prove she was telling the truth, letting her fingers trail through Max's hair before cupping her cheek. It still felt…insane, doing this. Surreal.

When they finally broke away, Max smiled. "I think it was kissing you in your room last week. That's what did it."

"Well shit, Max, I should've dared you a long time ago and saved us all the trouble."

Max punched her in the arm. "I'm serious. I didn't expect it to feel so…good."

"Ha! I knew it! Max, you know what this means?" Chloe dropped her voice low. "It means…you're super gay. Like, hella gay."

"My, what amazing deductive skills you have," said Max, kissing her on the forehead. "So, how long did you know, then?" Max grew quiet for a moment. "You were with Rachel, right? So it must not have been…"

"Max, it's always been you. I…I didn't always know it. Shit, I told myself I hated you a lot in these past few years. And I didn't lie. Rachel saved me. I loved her. But my life still wasn't good. I still wasn't happy. With you…I am. I _fucking_ am. And I knew that the moment I saw you at Blackwell."

"Chloe…"

She wiped her eyes with her arm. "Enough with the emotions, alright? Let's commence with the making out."

Max raised an eyebrow and broke out laughing, and soon they were both laughing in each other's arms, and for a few hours, the weight of Arcadia Bay's destruction lifted, just a bit.

Her dreams were ash in the morning light, dissolved by Max's laughter. Seattle could wait. Everything else had fallen apart. They deserved this.

* * *

Outside the motel, perched atop a blinking florescent sign labeled Motel, sat a raven, unfazed by the rain. Any onlookers, if they noticed it at all, would be surprised to find it fixated on one window only, staring with an intensity that only ravens can manage. Hours later, when the inhabitants of that room got into their ancient car and drove off into the rainy afternoon, it took flight and followed. The lights of the sign blinked out slowly, letter by letter, sparking in the rain.

* * *

They had only been driving for a few hours before the rain forced them to pull over. The old wipers of Chloe's car couldn't keep up with the buckets of water cascading down the windshield. They weren't the only ones. It seemed like everyone on the highway had pulled over as well, waiting in long lines at the edge of the road. A few brave – or stupid – souls tried to drive down the now-vacated road, judging from the dull smudges of headlights visible through the torrent of rain. If she'd been desperate to get to Seattle, maybe she'd have tried. She used to love rain like this. As a little kid, she'd look out the window during storms with her father, both fearing and hoping to hear the sound of thunder. Max was always scared of the storms whenever she'd come over, so William would tell the three of them how to count the distance between the thunder and lightning, reassuring them that the storm was far away. And even when it wasn't, they were together, and safe. Storms used to remind her of William. There was something sacred about them.

Now couldn't look outside into the storm without thinking of the one they'd fled. The old car shook with every thump of the wipers as the two sat in the quiet, both thinking along the same lines.

Max's phone had been blowing up with texts ever since they left the wreckage of Arcadia Bay behind. The storm had made major news, and her parents were, understandably, hysterical. It didn't make sense for Max to hold off talking with them for so long, at least not to anyone who didn't go through what they'd experienced. Their world had collapsed around them, and they'd pulled themselves from the wreckage. To talk to her parents, to abandon this road trip, whatever it was, felt wrong. It wasn't right to end this so quickly.

"Chloe."

"It's just rain. It's Washington – it rains all the time here."

"Chloe…"

"It's fine," she muttered, drumming on the steering wheel. "God I could use a smoke…"

"Chloe, listen to me!"

Even after the events of last week, it was still so weird to hear Max so angry, so determined. How much of this was the powers, and how much was this the real Max, never given a chance to come through until she was tested?

"I'm listening, Max."

"I think we need to talk about this. What if it isn't _just rain_?

Chloe felt her nails dig into the palms of her hands. It was hard to breathe.

_This is your fault._

None of them understood how time travel worked. Scientifically-speaking, it fucking shouldn't. They didn't know if their idea to stop the storm would have worked at all. Maybe time travel affected reality. Maybe Chloe was…supposed to die, alone in that bathroom, killed by Nathan Prescott, and maybe it was screwing with that that caused a storm. Time had to reassert itself. But maybe the storm had happened for some completely other reason, and they'd just been unlucky enough to be caught in its wake.

"Max, I don't know. I don't know if this is because of me, if time still hates that I'm alive, like everyone else in my life. But maybe we're both just being paranoid?"

Max put her hand over Chloe's. "I meant what I said. I made my choice. You're all that matters to me." She looked out into the rain. "But I don't want anyone else to be hurt."

"What do you mean?"

"The storm hit Arcadia Bay because I messed with time, right?"

"Shit Max, I don't think we even know that for sure. You mentioned having those visions before you even went into the bathroom. How does that even work?"

Max ran her fingers through her hair, holding her head. "I don't know! I had the vision, and then I went to the bathroom and saw…it was awful. And that's when my powers started. But the storm always hits Arcadia Bay, in every reality I saw."

"Then it wasn't you, Max. It's there in every reality, right? Didn't I…didn't I die in one of them?" She thought back to Max's tales of journeying into multiple timelines. And to the strange scenes she saw in her dream, refracted in the burn spots. "Okay, many of them?"

Max let out a long breath. "Yeah. And the storm still hit."

"See? It's a weird fucking storm. Maybe it's connected to your powers, but it always happens. Maybe whatever gave you your powers and shit made a big magical storm, but that doesn't mean _you_ caused it."

"Chloe, that's not what I…okay, I'm worried about it, but not at this second. So what if I didn't ask for powers? Maybe just by having them, the storm is still chasing me, and it's only stayed at this level because we've been moving? What if we go back to Seattle and stay with my parents and then another tornado hits them? And all the people in Seattle? I _cannot_ risk that, it would literally kill me."

Chloe didn't know what to say. The rain still fell. The wipers still shook the car, screeching against the glass.

"Are you sure?"

Max nodded. "I don't know if we'll ever figure out what happened. But I can't risk them too. We should stay on the road, away from people."

"What? You want to…go on a road trip? Seriously?"

"Yes. For as long as we can."

"Shit, Max."

"You, you don't want to?"

"Of course I want to! It's all I've wanted to do since…since my dad died. Get the fuck out of Arcadia Bay and just keep driving. But not alone."

Max looked away. "With Rachel, right? Wasn't that your plan?"

_I suggested we take an extended road trip originally, but it changed when Rachel got into modeling. L.A. was cool enough._

Chloe sighed. "Yeah. With…with Rachel. But then you came along and I…"

"I-it's okay, Chloe. This is really fast and I shouldn't have put all of this on you. It's only been like a week…"

Chloe climbed over and kissed Max, turning her head towards her gently.

"I want to do this, with _you_. Max Caulfield."

Max's face turned red.

Chloe leaned back into her seat and spread her arms. "We've always wanted to do this together. It's just like when we were kids. Pirates, slaves to no one, sailing the open seas.

"Except instead of the seas, we're on the American highway system."

"C'mon Max, let's think with metaphors here. You're the artsy one. Like pirates, we have complete freedom at the cost of any kind of security. Like the ocean, the roads stretch on forever. Brilliantly and uh…majestically. And it's really wet."

"Astounding, Professor Chloe."

"All I ask is that you appreciate my genius. All I ask."

"So, Professor-Pirate Bluebeard, where we do start our adventure? Our first mate needs to make a decision."

"First mate? I think it's obvious which one of us is in control of the vessel here. You look at the map, I call the shots and take her where she needs to go."

"So not cool. Let's be co-captains. You have the ship and the fearsome look, I have the map and…and the powers."

_There, it happens again. The real world creeps back into everything._

"Max?"

"Oh."

"Have you…have you used them. Since Friday?"

It took a long time until Max shook her head. "No."

Another few cars attempted to venture back out into the surging waves. Only one worked up the courage. The water it left in its wake splashed against the side of the car. Chloe thought back to her dream. She couldn't keep the image of Max, eyes glowing bright blue, back arching, from appearing in her head, over and over again. She had felt the pressure and the heat, really felt them. Could it have been...

Chloe looked back at Max.

"Are you going to again?" She didn't want to say the obvious, that having time powers was the only thing that could realistically let them keep up this indefinite road trip, this adventure sailing the seven seas of highways. It could solve their money problem, get them out of any dangerous situations, and even help them actually build a life together. But who knew what the consequences would be. If there was one thing Chloe had learned in the past week, it was that every action had its consequences.

"I don't know."

"Worried about what would happen?"

Max nodded. "I don't want anyone else to get hurt."

Chloe drummed on the steering wheel, quietly, mind racing. There had to be some way.

"Ah-ha!"

"Chloe?"

"Okay listen. If we accept that the storm hit Arcadia Bay because that's where you were – which I don't really accept, by the way – then maybe it's tied to physical locations. Let's find the most abandoned stretch of American wasteland and try using your powers again. If some fucking huge storm comes up, all it'll do is make the ground wet, maybe snap some trees apart. Then we know for sure. If nothing happens, then maybe the storm was it. No more supernatural weather to deal with." She glanced outside. "Only unusually bad weather."

Max looked out the side window, hugging herself. She breathed slowly, her eyes closed.

"Max?"

"I don't know, Chloe. I see what you mean but…maybe we have to deal with life like normal people. Maybe this is too much power for anyone to have."

"And maybe it just comes at a high price."

Max nodded. "Yeah."

"Will you at least consider it? I don't want to pressure you, but it might…it might be good to know for sure, either way. If it's bad, then, well, fuck, this is the cost for having Chloe Price in the world. We'll deal with that. If nothing happens, then maybe you could use your powers for good."

Max looked up at the top of the car, her face utterly exhausted.

_No one should have to make the kind of decisions she's been forced to._

Chloe climbed awkwardly over to Max and wrapped her arm around her shoulders, letting Max bury her face into Chloe's neck. "Whatever happens, this isn't just on you anymore, okay? It's my decision too."

Max sobbed quietly into her shoulder, and Chloe held her tightly. How many times had she wanted to do this with someone? To have someone hold her, not to give her some bullshit about how it was all going to be alright, not to try to come up with a solution, but just to hold her? She fought back tears of her own and sniffed.

Max pulled away and looked up at Chloe, smiling, somehow, after everything. "Thank you. I needed that…"

"I know."

Another moment of silence, then Max spoke.

"I can't guarantee anything. I don't know how I'll feel in a few days. But I'll think about it."

Chloe grinned. "All I ask."

_This isn't the road trip I dreamed about for years with Rachel, is it? Never thought it would end up being with Max. Or that would might be starting another apocalypse somewhere far from the east coast._

_But if this is my life now, I can live with this. On the run from time itself with Max._

The rain calmed for a few moments, and Chloe brought the car back to the highway, driving slowly. They turned around at the nearest exit, heading east to nowhere.

Just two pirates on the open sea, black flags unfurled.

And the enormous shape underneath, dwarfing their boat, unnoticed and waiting.


	4. Rapt in Secret Studies

Turning away from Seattle, they took I-84 southeast, cutting back through Oregon and Idaho, and into the northeast corner of Nevada. With nowhere in particular to get to, and no time in particular to get there, they drove a few hours every day and stayed in the cheapest motels they could find. Always conscious of their dwindling supply of money, they survived mostly off snacks at convenience stores. One evening, a few days into this new aimless part of their journey, they stopped for dinner at a Waffle House. The florescent lights above flickered every time the door closed. A few anonymous truckers sat at the bar, staring into nothing. A haggard family on a trip screamed at each other. It definitely wasn't the Two Whales. Nothing was, anymore.

They took a seat, ordered breakfast for dinner – waffles for Max, eggs and bacon for Chloe – and drank some of the foulest coffee Chloe had ever had. She knew her money was running low, and the question of how they were supposed to continue to fund this misadventure swam through both of their minds. A few minutes into their rambling conversation, Chloe managed to break that particular silence.

"If you used your powers…"

"I could steal?" Max lowered her voice, glancing at the rest of the oblivious patrons of the Waffle House.

"Yeah. It'd be easy."

"Easy? How would _you_ do it?"

Chloe stroked an imaginary beard. "Let's see…let's see. I could provide a distraction while you snuck behind a cash register and filled it with whatever you could fit in your pocket, and BAM, time-rewind, and the money's still in your pocket, right?"

"What if I can't get behind the counter? Or I can't open the register? Or they have a gun?"

"Can't you just pull a Neo and freeze the bullet?"

Max raised an eyebrow. Chloe shrugged.

"Why not?"

"Because I'd probably get shot before I could react, and then even when I rewound I might still be hurt."

"Hmm. Point taken. How about you just snatch someone's purse?"

Max folded her arms. "I'm not a thief."

"You did aid and abed this thief to help me pay off Frank."

"Well that was for a good cause."

"Well, this is _also_ to keep us alive, so it's the same cause."

"There has to be a better way. And I don't even know if I should use them at all again. They're what got us into this in the first place."

Their waitress arrived with their food and Max shut up quickly, looking deeply paranoid. Chloe dove into the eggs. They were…well, they paired well with the awful coffee. At least it wasn't Cheetos and Onions Rings.

"We don't really know that," she said. They'd had this conversation before, but Chloe still thought she could make it work this time. That's what she'd always done. In a rough spot with someone? Talk back to them, twist their words around, make them so angry and confused that they gave in to your demands, sometimes without even realizing it. She didn't really want to inflect that particular brand of Chloe Price on Max, and she didn't think she even had the right to try to get Max to use her powers again, but…she never claimed to be a saint. Maybe the same principles would apply to a friendly debate instead of an argument.

"Chloe…"

Chloe raised her hands, palms up. "I get it, Max, I know. We'll never know. But why not? Your powers have some kind of rules, right? Even if you don't know them all?"

Max raised the cup to her lips and stared at Chloe, her eyes ringed with nearly two weeks of bad sleep. After a long silence, she set it down on the table, hands still holding it for warmth. Rain pattered on the wide, smeared window beside their booth.

"I've thought about it, Chloe, I really have. Do I still have my powers? What happens to the present me while I'm further back in a picture? Why pictures? Can they be pictures I'm not in? Why did I get the visions of the storm even before I had powers? Were the warnings to help me stop it? Was there another way of stopping it other than…than not using powers at all? I can't stop thinking about it. It's like I need to know…exactly how guilty I should be."

"Max, you don't…"

"No, I do." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "More people have died because of me than from Jefferson and Nathan! Doesn't that make me a worse person than them?"

"That's not how…"

"Morality works, right? Chloe, I know, Jefferson was evil, and I was trying to do the right thing. So? It doesn't matter to all the people who died, or who lost people."

"Max," said Chloe, reaching her hand out to cover Max's wrist. She didn't pull away.

"We're going to drive ourselves insane thinking about guilt. I don't care about whatever logic puzzles you've made up that make you and Jefferson the same, because you are fucking not like him at all. If saving me caused the storm, than you were doing the right thing at the time. You didn't even know I was me! You were just trying to save some random girl. Every step of the way you've been trying to do the right thing. I don't _know_ if it was the right thing. I don't think we'll _ever know_ if it was the right thing. But no one is going to believe you enough to judge you, and if there's a God out there and she's legitimately a good person, then she won't punish you for doing what seemed right. There's only you punishing yourself. "

She quieted down as the waitress dropped of the check, then turned back to Max.

"I've been thinking a lot about this." She remembered the strange dream of the Other Max, sobbing on her bed. "I think…there wasn't a right choice for you. You would've felt guilty and awful if you let me die. Maybe it would have been right, but you'd feel just as bad."

Max said nothing, but Chloe could see she was listening intently. Maybe agreeing?

"So let's not talk about how guilty we are. It won't do anything. Let's…let's remember them, and work on being better people in the future."

_God, I'm sounding like my mom now…_

Max finished her drink and set it aside. She sniffed, wiping away tears. Chloe starting playing footsie with her under the table until Max laughed, still crying.

"So we're good? No more crying, okay. Not while we're in a Waffle House, at least. I mean, wow, I get that this place would move you to tears of boredom, but still…"

"Okay, okay," Max said, smiling now.

"That's better." Chloe leaned back in her booth, hands tucked behind her head. "So, Max Caulfield. We've been driving for a long time. We don't have a lot of money, but now that you have a girlfriend, she'd probably be interested in taking you out on a date. Any suggestions?"

"A girlfriend? Wow, that seems a bit presumptuous."

"Oh, my apologizes, I was under the impression that when two ridiculously hot girls spend their nights in the same bed, in each other's arms, kissing whenever they get the chance, and using both of the important "L" words, than that was girlfriend material."

"Well, now that you put it that way…"

"So, girlfriend, where's our date going to be?"

The conversation drifted on from there, floating along as they got back into the car and continued their no-where voyage across the seas of American concrete. They only had really known these versions of themselves for less than two weeks, after all. There was a lot of time to make up for. Five long years, actually.

* * *

Chloe was no stranger to feeling both dizzyingly happy and crushingly sad, so navigating the weird emotions of losing her home and family but gaining Max's love was a challenge, but familiar. It was a more magnified version of how she felt with Rachel – aware, dimly, of the objective awfulness of her life whirling around her, but also sheltering this tiny flame of happiness. Now it was like a wildfire in a storm, both raging, both powerful, neither going away anytime soon.

Max, on the other hand, had lived a relatively normal, happy life. Loving parents, a small circle of friends, decent grades. She hadn't even had a relationship to lose. She wasn't taking it as well. She muttered in her sleep every night, and sometimes woke up sweating, sobbing into Chloe's shoulder. A few times she had to run to the bathroom to throw up. But when they were talking, whenever she was distracted, it was like all of the awful shit fell away, and she was just a teenager in the throes of a new relationship, awkwardness and all.

Chloe had heard the call Max made to her parents from the hotel the night they hadn't shown up in Seattle, even though she'd tried to stay out of earshot and let them have the moment. They wouldn't possibly be able to understand. Fragments of their conversation drifted through the door of the bathroom as Chloe sat in the tab.

"…have to do this…awhile at least but…you know I'm okay…with Chloe, I'm safe, I'm just…"

Forty-five minutes later, Chloe stopped hearing Max's voice. She stepped back into the motel room to find her lying on her back on the bed, sobbing. Chloe lay beside her, stroking her hair, not saying anything. Always conscious of the rain at the window. Ceaseless. Pursuing.

* * *

She got the text the night after their conversation at Waffle House, lying awake in the motel with Max asleep beside her. She reluctantly pulled herself from the bed and opened the window, lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke out into the rain and the darkness. She looked down at the message from an unknown number.

_Chloe. This is David. Lost old phone in storm. Looking for you. I cant find your car. Are you ok?_

She just stared at her phone, blowing out smoke. Her heart hammered.

David?

David was alive? Of everyone to die in the storm, _he_ had to be the one to live?

_Please Chloe. I'm sorry for everything. Please be alive. Text me back._

David Madsen had been the biggest target of her hate for years now, the constant living embodiment of the life that she was told she'd have to settle for, a laughable imitation of what she had before the crash. He had consistently been a douche of epic proportions; a misogynistic, gun-obsessed, paranoid caveman who thought that he could crash through the doors of their home and become her new father. She owed him nothing, especially now that Joyce was…gone.

But she remembered Max telling her the story of how David had come to her rescue, saved her in another timeline. If he hadn't, then Max would truly have died there, and Chloe would still be dead, lying in the same grave as Rachel, two teenagers dead before their time under the pallid light of two moons.

"Damnit," she whispered. She did owe him something, but for anything he'd done for them. He saved Max's life. Anyone who did that deserved something.

But he was military, right? Couldn't he track her down and send the cops after her to bring her back? She imagined living in a small apartment with just David supporting her, and tried not to gag. Responding to the text was risky. Dangerous. Stupid.

_i'm ok_

_not in OR_

_with Max. her family knows she's ok_

_we need time away. sorry_

She let the messages fly away. She tried to calm herself down, but she was sweating now, despite the cool mist of rain on her face. David was alive. The storm hadn't killed the entire town. If David was alive, couldn't…couldn't others be too? Her mom? But she'd never responded to their calls, and Max had seemed so sure that she had been in the diner when it blew up.

For a second, she blamed Max. It wasn't a thought she wanted to have, but she was used to invasive thoughts worming their way inside her. Insisting on their validity, their truth.

_Rachel cheated on you because she never loved you. She was just experimenting with you. She loved having an adoring fan at her command. Her Ariel, remember?_

_You've ruined Max's life. She could have had so much – been so much – if you hadn't come back into her life._

_You shouldn't have let Dad go. You should have known._

Max chose to save her, even knowing that it doomed people better than her to death. Joyce didn't deserve to die in that diner after losing so much.

She shook her head.

_Shut up! Max loves you! I don't know why, but she does. And you love her too. This whole situation is fucked up, but don't lose sight of this. Remember this._

It only took a few minutes before her phone lit up. He was calling.

_Don't pick up. Don't pick up._

She closed the window and walked into the bathroom. Curled up on the tile floor, she held the phone to her ear and hit answer. She could hear him breathing on the other end.

"C-Chloe?"

Why was she crying? Just because he sounded like he was? She swallowed and wiped her eyes.

"Yeah. I'm okay."

"Oh thank God! Oh God…" She heard a ragged breath on the other end. He was breathing slowly, in and out, sniffling occasionally. "Chloe, I…I looked for you for days…it's hell over here. It's almost worse than… Where are you?"

"Safe. Max's asleep, but she's here too. We've told her parents. But we can't…we have to stay gone. I know it doesn't make any sense, but can you please trust me, for once? We have…we have to work through some sh…stuff. We need this."

More breathing. "But Chloe, you…okay. Okay. As long as you're safe."

"Thanks."

They both sat on the line, breathing, neither knowing what to say. Finally, David spoke.

"Chloe, there's s-something you should know…"

_Whales, think about whales._

Both Chloe and David tried to hide their tears from the other that night, one of them in the bathroom of a motel in Idaho, the other in a makeshift shelter in the ruins of Arcadia Bay. They talked for only a few minutes, but it was the first time they'd ever _truly_ talked. Somewhere, Joyce would be proud that they were finally connecting. Somewhere, but not here, not in this life.

* * *

It was October 21st, two weeks after the day she was supposed to die. March 11, 1994 to October 7, 2013. Nineteen years old. She would have never been old enough to drink, legally. She'd never left Oregon. At least she wasn't a virgin. At least she'd experienced love, for a bit. But _shit_. Not much of a life.

When she wasn't thinking about Max, or about her mother, or about the town, or about Rachel, or about whales, she thought about time. Specifically, the other times, the other worlds, that Max had seen. She tried to keep them all straight in her mind.

In one timeline – she had to stop herself from thinking the worlds "real timeline" – she'd been killed by Nathan Prescott in the Blackwell bathroom, with a traumatized Max looking on. But then Max used her powers - the fateful decision that had doomed Arcadia Bay.

In the long days on the road, Max had told her about the others. The time when she had gotten her leg stuck in the train tracks? She'd died, multiple times, as Max tried to figure out how to do it right.

Then there was the one they could only call the "darkest timeline" – where Jefferson actually fucking murdered her above Rachel's grave and left them there, two teenagers killed by the same evil, lying forgotten underneath the pale light of two moons. And then Max had been captured by Jefferson while the twisted fuck took his photos. Max's story here had been confusing, and Chloe wasn't sure even now that she knew what happened, but somehow David of all people had come to her rescue – after several deaths – and then Max had driven through the storm to find Warren and the photo…

Max had told of her one more timeline she'd lived through, one where she tipped David off from the beginning with the knowledge she'd already learned. Jefferson and Nathan were caught early, Max won her contest and had her art displayed like she'd always dreamed about, but then…the storm had come anyway. Max could have walked away then and had her perfect life, but she destroyed it all to save Arcadia Bay.

_No, Chloe. She destroyed it all to save you._

It hurt to think about, emotionally and mentally. The other timelines only existed as stories Max told her in those early days on the road. All she'd ever known was the time she was in. She'd apparently died in most of those, so there wasn't much she was missing out on, but she wondered about the Chloe Price who lived through that last timeline. What would that week have been like, bonding with Max without the hunt for information? Without Kate's suicide attempt, without the break-in swim in the Blackwell pool, without their morning of plotting and mystery-solving? Without them finding Rachel's body in the junkyard?

Before two weeks ago, she'd try to shut down these kids of thoughts, usually with beer or weed or particularly good music. Back when Rachel and her were together, they'd sometimes have these kinds of conversations, laying down in their secret fort at the junkyard. She remembered one particular conversation, maybe back in 2011, on a Friday night or so. It was dark outside, and all they could hear was the chirruping of crickets and the roar of the train in the distance.

"Rach."

"Yeah, Chloe?"

"Do you ever think about, I don't know, alternate timelines?"

"I'm getting the feeling you do."

"Yeah, I mean, think of all the weird shit that's happened in our lives, and how it could've gone differently. Like, insanely differently, if not for some small choice or whatever."

"Like if you hadn't made the momentous decision to meet the love of your life at a secret Firewalk show?"

"Yeah, something like that. Totally not a good future."

"I know what you mean. What if we'd just left Arcadia Bay after The Tempest? What if we didn't go back to my place and have dinner with my par…James and Rose."

"Wow, yeah."

"What brought this up?"

"I don't know."

"Chloe. I know you better than anyone."

"Okay, yeah, my Dad."

"It's today, right? The anniversary?"

"…"

"Chloe, I…there's no use in blaming yourself."

"Why? Why do people always say that? They don't know. I could…I could have stopped him. He didn't have to go…"

"Chloe, hey, hey…you couldn't have done anything! You didn't know the future, no one can. It was an accident. Shit happens, awful shit, and you couldn't have known. Even if there was something you could have done – which there wasn't, I remind you – feeling guilty about it isn't going to help."

"Why not?"

"Because. Because you can't go back and change things. Time just moves forward, and we have to live with whatever happens. We can learn from mistakes, but we can't fix them. Guilt is only useful if it stops you from making a mistake in the future. How is this going to help you? It's not. You loved your Dad, I know that, and I know you always will love him. And you can feel sad about him being gone, and you should, but he wouldn't want you to feel guilty. I know I didn't know him, but you've talked enough about them. I'm a good judge of character. He'd want you moving forward, doing great things. And not whatever shit they tell you is great. The great things _you_ want to do."

"…"

"Chloe?"

"You're right. Blame doesn't do anything. But it's still…it's still hard, you know? Like, I could have still gone to Firewalk if he lived. I could have still met you. I could have a better life, maybe. Imagine how good things could have been. My dad alive, my step-douche out of the picture, you and me and maybe even Max. That's not a stupid wish is it? It's not some utopia. It could have happened, easily."

"It could've. That would've been nice. Do you think your Dad would've…you know, liked me? Liked us?"

"Of course! Rach, how does anyone not like you? He'd be happy I was happy."

"Well, you haven't told your mom, right?"

"Well, no, but that's…that's more 'cause I don't want David knowing. He'd be even more of a dick about it."

"Okay, so I'd win Papa Price's approval. What about Max?"

"You'd definitely get along! She loves art and stuff. She's into photography – maybe she could take all your modeling pictures?"

"Still haven't heard from her?"

"…"

"Take that as a 'no.' Chloe, for someone who hasn't given you the time of day in three years, you sure talk about her a lot."

"She meant a lot to me."

"Sounds like I should be happy that she's not here. I might be jealous."

"Of Max? N-no, she's…she was just my friend!"

"Mm-hm."

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk a lot? Like, an insane amount of talking? Wow, forget being a model, you should be a professor."

"I'd make an excellent psychology professor, thank you very much."

"Sign me up for your class, then. I could use it."

"Oh, you're my test subject, of course you'd have to be in the class. 'Welcome, class, today we're going to be studying the extraordinary psyche of Chloe Price, bad apple of Arcadia Bay. How can someone so cute be so dangerous? How can someone so intelligent listen to such aggressive music? How can someone so witty spend so much time smoking…what do you kids call them…joints of marijuana? Find out in this wonderful, essential class!'"

"Hot. For. Teacher."

Chloe wrenched herself away from the memory. She had Max now. She needed to be here, now, in whatever this was.

"What're you thinking about?" asked Max. She had her notebook open on her lap, the pen resting behind an ear.

"Nothing. Just…"

"Guilt?"

"No, no, I was thinking about, well, time travel. Alternate timelines. Like what would have happened if little things had gone differently. Things we…most of us…never get to know."

"Oh. Right."

Route 50 stretched on, quiet and endless. The flat dirt around them felt like an ocean. She could see that Max was staring at her through the window.

"Like what?"

Chloe sighed. "I guess…I guess I was thinking about stuff that happened before you got your powers. What if I hadn't got expelled from Blackwell, maybe? What if my dad hadn't died?"

At that, Max looked away for a second. Only a second. But something felt strange about it.

"Chloe, I don't think it'd be what you think. I should know that more than anyone. There are unexpected consequences to everything."

"Yeah, but how could it be worse?"

The two were silent as the car zoomed along Route 50, no one else in sight. Max suddenly turned to her.

"Pull over."

"What? Why?"

"Just, pull over."

Chloe shrugged, and turned the car away from the road, out into the vast emptiness of this particular stretch of Nevada. Her car bumped and jostled as the tires adjusted to a new surface.

"Further."

"Aye-aye, Cap'n," she muttered, pushing them forward, away from the road. The radio kicked in and out every time they hit a particularly bad dip or rise. Eventually, after they'd been driving off-road for a few minutes, Max signaled that they should stop.

"Okay, I'm officially confused. Did you lure me out here to seduce me?"

Max grinned. "Maybe one day."

"Then what's this?"

The smile faltered. "I'm going to try them again."

"Your powers?" Chloe felt a little thrill, quickly couched in anxiety. She imagined it must be ten times that for Max.

Max nodded. She pulled her legs up to the seat and wrapped her arms around them, looking out the window. "This place is so empty. If something happens…"

"No one'll get hurt."

"I hope not."

"Why the change of heart?"

Max didn't speak for a long time, far longer than was normal in a normal conversation between two regular people. But they weren't regular people – or at least Max wasn't – and this wasn't a normal conversation. Chloe sat back, waiting for Max to collect the pieces of her stressed mind enough to answer. Finally, Max turned to her.

"I can't stop thinking. About everything, but especially about my powers. I don't know if I was given them or just found them or always had them, and there's so much about these last few weeks that doesn't make sense. It doesn't add up, and maybe it's not supposed to or we can't possibly know, but I have to try."

Chloe nodded. "That's the Max Caulfield I know and love."

"What?"

"You're the nosiest person I know. You just have to solve the mystery." She put her hands behind her head. "I, on the other hand, am completely chill and content with the wonders of the universe."

Max snorted. "Uh-huh."

"But, as your loyal chauffeur, co-captain, time criminal, and girlfriend, I'll play along. Let's solve the mystery."

"I don't know about solving…"

"Did you do it yet?"

"…no, I didn't do it yet."

"Sorry, I never know. I've never seen you _use_ your powers. You've only ever _just used_ them, if that makes sense."

"Huh. I guess I never thought of it that way."

"So…when are you going to use them?"

Max breathed deeply. "Let me…let me prepare. I need to be one hundred percent sure. Can you give me an hour?"

"Yeah, I can do that," said Chloe. She put her arm around her. "We've got enough time."

"I hope so, Chloe. I hope so."


	5. Something Rich and Strange

The Nevada desert sprawled around them, a shadowy mass of sand underneath a blinking night sky. Chloe sat on top of her car, a cheap blanket they'd bought at a shop nearby slung around her shoulders. She took another drag off her cigarette and leaned back. She could feel Max move in the car below, hunched over in the passenger's seat, scribbling away in her journal. From what Max had told her, the journal – with its collections of pictures – had literally saved her life, back in what the two could only refer to as the darkest timeline. Of all the other variations of reality Max had seen, that one scared them both the most. So it only felt right to keep up with the journal. Maybe it would come in handy again, if their plan went to shit.

Chloe felt the car door open beneath her. Max stepped out into the night, her camera hanging from her neck.

"You ready?" Chloe called down, scooting to the edge of the car.

Max looked up at her. "I don't think I'll ever be ready, Chloe. But I'm going to do it."

"Well, just in case, let's save our game," said Chloe. She leapt down off the car and hung her arm around Max. "Time for a selfie."

Max angled the camera to capture both of their faces. Chloe kissed her on the cheek right before the flash went off.

"Ew, you're adorable," said Max, shaking the printed Polaroid a few times until the image came into focus. The flash lit their faces with a ghostly light, and the bags under both their eyes were still visible despite Max's blushing.

A drizzle of mist fell down lazily as they stood in the darkness. A symphony of crickets chirruped in the background, an ever-present soundtrack performed by an invisible orchestra. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes. Chloe could hear Max's breath. She pulled her close.

"You don't have to do this, you know."

"I know. But I'm gonna."

Chloe nodded. "Okay."

Max leaned up and kissed her, then turned back to the desert. They sat in silence for a moment.

"Did you do it yet?" asked Chloe. It was always confusing, being on the other end of time travel. She'd never seen Max actually, well…do whatever it was that she did to rewind time. During those five days, the only thing she noticed was that Max would suddenly seem… _off_ , like she'd stop mid-sentence and forget everything, or she'd just clutch her head for a moment and let Chloe know that she'd rewound time.

Max shook her head. "No, not yet…"

Chloe reached over and took her hand, entwining their fingers together. She looked into Max's eyes. "Okay. So if we're doing this, trying your powers again, risking a…well, another apocalypse…this is on us both, not just you. This is our decision. Got that? Whatever happens, it's just as much my fault. We're in this together. All of it."

A flicker of uncertainty passed over Max's face before she shook her head and smiled. "Okay. Partner in crime?"

"Partner in time."

Max laughed, and tossed a pebble she'd been holding in her other hand a few feet forward.

That's when everything went…weird.

A familiar head-pounding pressure settled above Chloe, and the air around her thickened and whirled, tinted red like blood. Sounds spun backward, and with an unsettling noise pounding in her ears, she watched as Max reached out her other hand. The pebble leapt up from the dirt, dust cloud contracting, until it flew backwards and landed perfectly in Max's hand. Suddenly everything re-aligned back to normal, except that Chloe could feel a nosebleed. She reeled and stumbled backwards.

"Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. Holy shit."

"Chloe?"

"I…I was with you, I saw the whole thing! The air and the heat and the pebble…" she doubled over, clutching her head. "That was insane! Is that what's it's like every time?"

"Yes, but…how did you come with me?"

Chloe looked at the hand she'd held Max's with. The veins bulged more than usual, and she could see the faint outline of blue light fading with every passing second. Soon, it was back to normal.

"Holding hands?"

"What? Was it that easy the whole time?"

_Max's back arched, her eyes glowing blue. The lights spinning around her, dancing and climbing higher and higher…_

"I don't know…maybe something's changed."

They stared at each other, breathing heavily, confused and exhilarated and terrified. Max put a hand up horizontal to the sky, checking for an increase in the rain's intensity. "It doesn't feel any different to me."

Chloe shook her head. "No. I guess we have to…what, wait five days to find out if this place gets typhooned?"

Max winced, and Chloe felt a flash of shame. "There were signs. The snow, and the whales, and the moons. Maybe that's all we need to know for sure."

"Can we…can we try that again? The whole time travel thing?"

"Chloe…I don't want to risk it."

"I just need to know if I really saw that. I don't think another rewind is going to do anything that this one didn't do."

Max bit her lip, her eyes darting around, deep in thought. She nodded, and reached out her hand. Chloe took it, her own hand trembling. Her heart hammered.

_Okay Chloe, pay attention, this is happening, this is really happening…_

"Can we try going back further?" Chloe blurted out.

"How far?"

"I don't know…maybe to when we took the picture?"

Max reached out her hand, and time bent backward. The pressure bore down on Chloe's head, and her vision swam in red, but nothing changed. Suddenly everything was normal again.

"So…did anything happen? I thought we'd be back by the car or whatever."

Max looked deep in thought. "Normally, I don't move. Time goes backward but I stay in the same spot. I guess if you're coming along with me…"

"I don't move either."

Max nodded. "This is actually kind of…scary."

"Why?"

"I used to be able to…protect you. If something happens to you, I could just rewind it."

"But now I stay the same, like you?"

"Yeah. At least, while we're holding hands." Max blinked and leaned her head back. "Did you feel that?"

"No…did you go back?"

"Yes…wow…it looks like you can come along for the ride if we hold hands, but not if I'm doing it myself."

Chloe opened her mouth to respond but Max spoke up first. "And no, you can't rewind time without me. You tried."

"Ah." Did Max just create a few more timelines? Were there other Chloe's standing here in the desert thinking the same thoughts?

"Max…can we try one more time?"

Max rubbed the back of her neck. "Why?"

"I want to try something. If we're holding hands, can I control the powers? Like, can I take control of the wheel if you start the engine?"

Max took a deep breath to steady herself. "Only one way to find out." She held out her hand, and Chloe took it. With her free hand, she passed the pebble to Chloe, who promptly threw out it out into the dirt.

"Alright, here goes Chloe Price, sidekick extraordinaire," she said, reaching out her hand in her best Max Caulfield impression.

Nothing happened.

"Uh…how do you do it? Do you think something in particular?"

"It's like…feeling you can push down on the air. Think of turning back time, but only with a little pressure. It's…hard to explain."

"Thinking with little pressure…okay, no pressure, Chloe, you got this."

She reached out her hand, feeling – or hoping, really – for that sense of pushing down air. She wanted to go back, just a little, but badly. Too badly.

Her head split, her body folding into itself. Too much pressure, too quick movement. Max was above her, her mouth moving slowly, words unable to form. There was a tearing sound, like something heavy and thick shredding at the seams, and the taste of hot blood trickled into Chloe's mouth before darkness took her.

* * *

Chloe was wandering through what looked like a museum, with fragments of her and Max's lives suspended like a series of incredibly life-like sculptures. Some showed them as kids, but most were of the five days before the storm. Every time she walked by one, she could hear her and Max's voices echoing from everywhere, repeating on a loop if she stayed by any one diorama for too long.

All around her was a vast darkness, with only the small path illuminated in front of her, guiding her through their lives.

It was simultaneously one of the strangest dreams she had, while also making a surprising amount of sense. She recognized all of these events. Normally in dreams, there would be odd gaps or people she really didn't know or things that they really didn't do. She could tell she was dreaming, but it didn't see so easy to shake herself awake.

"Okay Chloe, what's your subconscious trying to tell you?"

Eventually, the trail led up a small hill to the lighthouse. Rain hung in the sky, suspended like tiny crystals. Arcadia Bay in miniature rested below, a frozen tornado spinning at its edges. Max looked off, soaked in rain and stricken with fear and sorrow. The other Chloe stood a foot away, her eyes downcast.

A blue butterfly floated past her. The familiar glowing lights of the path lit up wherever it flew, so she followed. That's what you did when strange creatures showed you the way in dreams, right?

The path of the butterfly lead up to another short hill, and now she was standing at what appeared to be the same scene. There was still rain in the sky, still Arcadia Bay below, still the frozen tornado in the same spot. But this time, the Max and Chloe were…kissing? Or, Max was kissing Chloe, to be more accurate. Her own voice spoke from overhead.

" _I'll always love you… Now, get out of here, please…do it before I freak. And Max Caulfield…don't you forget about me."_

" _Never._

"Wait…what?"

The butterfly flew past, and Chloe followed, stumbling along.

"That's not…that's not what happened. She ripped up the picture, she chose…she chose me, she didn't...we didn't…"

Now they were back at the bathroom, that moment that Chloe had only lived once, but Max had seen so many times. Her stomach dropped. Max lay curled up behind the stalls, sobbing quietly. And Chloe…she was lying on the ground, red pooling around her.

Dead.

_Another Max in a Blackwell dorm, curled up on her bed, screaming._

"Wait…"

This is what would have happened if Max had chosen to sacrifice Chloe for the sake of Arcadia Bay. Knowing it was her last time, she told Chloe how she felt, and then had to go back and let her die? And it worked. No storm.

Did that mean that Max was right and her powers did cause it? The storm hit every timeline Max visited…except this. Chloe died in other times and the storm still came. But Chloe was supposed to die there, in the Blackwell girl's bathroom, killed by Nathan Prescott while trying to extort him for money to escape with an already-dead Rachel Amber.

"That's my fucking life?" she whispered. Suddenly she felt the immense weight of the injustice, the banality of the pathetic life she was supposed to have lead. Nineteen years old. A high school dropout. Drugged by a psychopath – incorrectly – and killed in a bathroom of a school she'd been expelled from by the very same psychopath. Her father, dead in a car accident. Her best friend, gone away. The girl she loved, dead after cheating on her. She hadn't been a perfect person but…she didn't deserve that? Who decided this? Who said that this was the narrative of her life?

Max had made the right, moral choice every step of the way, only to be slapped in the face by an uncaring…something…with the reality that she was not a hero, that everything she was doing was building towards some greater doom. All because she had tried to save a girl she didn't even recognize from a pointless death.

She leaned her head back and spread her arms wide. "Hey? Is there anyone there? Who set up this Stephen King horror bullshit? Are you God? Are you the fucking Devil? Are you 'fate'? Well fuck you! Max saved me from your story. She loved me enough to play your stupid game and make your stupid choice. FUCK YOU!"

"Caw. Caw."

A raven flew past her and landed on the head of the crying Max in the frozen scene.

"What?"

_A raven tapping at the window. Max's eyes, bright blue and glowing._

It was the only other thing in this dream that moved. One dark shape in an elaborate art piece of frozen time. Chloe took a hesitant step forward.

"Caw. Caw."

The raven took off, flying behind Max towards the bathroom door. It didn't stop, but pushed through the door like it was made of heavy cloth, and vanished behind it.

Chloe looked down at the frozen, crying, Max, and followed the raven, carefully stepping over her own corpse.

"Now that's going to be mentally scarring."

The door gave way, like stage curtains, and Chloe found herself in the open air of the Blackwell quad, with two large tents on either end. A light-board was set up on a table on the opposite end, and a series of props were displayed on another table like artifacts in a museum. The raven landed on the table with the light-board, and hopped to an old radio. With a surprisingly dexterous claw, it switched the machine on and turned up the volume.

The sound of rain crackled through the static.

"What the fuck?"

The raven leapt up again and flew to the left, towards one of the large tents. Lights were coming from inside, shadows cast on the edge of the tent like a bonfire. She followed it. As she got closer, she could hear the crackle of a flame and the smell of roasting marshmallows. She heard a familiar laugh.

"Finally, the Apocalypse Maiden graces us with her presence."

_Wait, that's…_

She turned the corner.

She wasn't in a dressing tent anymore, but on the beach outside Arcadia Bay, the light of the golden hour blazing above. An enormous bonfire raged in the center of the beach, consuming the corpse of a whale. Several figures stood a foot or two from the burning whale, ringing the fire and roasting marshmallows.

They were all her.

A few looked just like her, with slight changes. One's shirt was stained crimson with blood from her stomach. Another, laughing and assembling a s'more, had a bullet hole between her eyes, dripping blood down her face. Another was entirely soaked with water. As she coughed, water poured from her mouth and nose.

There was another, her age but bound to a mechanical wheelchair, her eyes vacant. One was in Rachel's old clothes, her hair bright red and her bare arms lined with even more tattoos. Another was an older woman, maybe in her forties, her hair back to brown and tied in a ponytail. Another was her in a suit, with bright white hair. They all turned to her as she stepped closer.

One of the Chloe's – the one who'd spoke to her before – stepped up. It was the one with red hair and tattoos. She quieted the others with her palms raised outward, and they returned to their jokes and their s'mores. She walked past the bonfire, the light illuminating her face in a shifting series of strange angles. She pulled out two cigarettes from her pocket, lit them both, and handed one to Chloe. She took it, and smoked in silence in front of her other self for a moment.

The waves climbed up the sand in small crashes. It smelled like smoke, salt, dead fish, barbecue, and chocolate.

"Well, this is weird," said Chloe.

Other Chloe grinned and nodded. "Fuck yeah it is."

"What's going on?"

Other Chloe shrugged. "You're dreaming. Don't you know? Everyone in your dreams is just a version of yourself."

"Maybe, but usually it's not so literal."

"I like literal. No symbolic bullshit."

"So…'me'…what is this? What am I trying to tell myself?"

The light flared on Other Chloe's cigarette as she inhaled, smiling with her eyes only. "Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine."

"They're the other me's. Alternate timelines or whatever. Everything I was worried about before I fell asleep."

"There's not a ton of evidence to the theory of alternate timelines, you know. If it really happened, wouldn't there be, like, an infinite amount of Chloes? Every possible decision creating another reality?"

"Maybe," she said. She couldn't stop looking at them all. "Maybe we're all just the one's Max made."

"So humble. 'The one's Max made.'"

"I mean, I don't have powers. It was Max."

"You don't have _time_ powers, you mean." Other Chloe grinned.

"I don't have _any_ powers. I think I'd know if I could turn invisible or some shit. Would've been real useful in my life."

Other Chloe took a long drag and blew a cloud of smoke away from them. "When did Max get her powers?"

"What?"

"I said, 'when did Max get her powers?' I know, but it's a rhetorical question I'm hoping you'll answer."

"Uh, I guess when she was trying to save me?"

Other Chloe snapped her fingers. "Dropped out of school but still so perceptive! Follow the logic."

"I didn't…I didn't _give_ her powers…she couldn't do that when were kids…"

"It's just a theory. I'm just you, after all, so you've obviously been thinking about it. But me, where I'm from, Max didn't get powers."

_All my other lives. They're right here. What happened in her one? Is she still me, really, is she still the Chloe Price that I think I am?_

"Where are you from?"

Suddenly, a flash of intense light broke the stillness of the night sky. Something faint and far away was falling from behind the clouds. All of the other Chloes turned in unison to watch. She couldn't see well enough to know what it was, but when it hit the ocean at the horizon line, thunder roared.

"The sound of thunder," Other Chloe said, as if to herself.

The air felt wet, and it began to rain. The other Chloes let out a chorus of profanity and started to pack up their supplies.

Other Chloe shrugged. "Guess it's time for us to go."

"Wait, you didn't tell me where you're from! What's going on?"

"There's another tent out there. Take a look." She tossed the cigarette down into the sand and stomped on it. "Best make for the island while you can, Chloe. The flood's coming for all of us, _but I would fain die a dry death."_

* * *

She was back behind the stage of the Tempest. Now it was night, and the tent she had come from before was on fire. The old radio still played the sounds of rain. She still held the cigarette between her fingers.

_This is the weirdest dream I've ever had._

Normally she could wake herself up from dreams once she realized what was happening. It had been a useful skill – in the past few months she'd had a lot of dreams she didn't want to linger in. But she didn't try, now. She'd really been taken along with Max's power this time. She'd had first-hand evidence of Max's ability. Not to say that she hadn't believed Max before, but it was one thing to have faith, and another to have that faith proven with your own senses. Maybe this dream had something to do with that. It was worth exploring, at least.

She walked past the prop table and looked at everything assembled there. A pair of keys in a hand-made bowl. A bobble-head of a singing man. A busted camera. A gun. A DVD case with a homemade cover – plain white with the words Blade Runner scrawled on top. A Dungeons & Dragons figurine of an Elf Barbarian. A bowl of shattered glass. A needle and spoon. A neatly folded sweater with the words Arcadia Bay surrounding a cartoon lighthouse. A flier for the Two Whales. A knife.

And a book, leather-bound and old. There was no cover image or title. Chloe wandered over to it and flipped it open. The words were jumbled, nonsense dashes and lines. She was reminded of a time she'd tried LSD, and the words had seemed to crawl off the pages of a magazine and leapt into the air like insects. This was English, but it made no sense. As she turned, a few Polaroids fell from between the pages. She knelt down and picked them up.

The first was mostly burned, but she could recognize the face of a young Rachel, smiling next to her father while they were hiking. The same photo that started a bonfire and threw them both into all the shit that happened that week. Through the faint burnt edge she could see a face with glasses, smiling.

Jefferson.

She blinked, and it was back to an indiscernible smudge.

"Damn…" she whispered, turning to the other photos.

It was the picture of Rachel she used for her missing person fliers, the one with a defiant Chloe Price on the other side. It was still folded, just like the one she'd kept. Only this time, it could unfold again, and Max stood on the other side of her, smiling awkwardly.

Rachel and Max. She'd never loved anyone as much as she'd loved them. Two beautiful, creative, vibrant people who deserved so much better than Chloe Price. What would have happened if they'd met? Would they have been friends? Jealous of each other?

The last photo was stranger. It was of her, laying down in what looked like a desert, blood dried under her nose, a frantic Max trying to shake her awake. She couldn't remember seeing this one before. Who was there to take it? What were they doing there?

Her head hurt trying to think about it. She pocketed the pictures and continued on to the other tent. This one looked like it was belching smoke, just like the first tent, but she couldn't hear the sounds of fire. She brushed aside the curtain and took a step forward.

She was in the Junkyard now, quiet and alone in the darkness. Smoke from a wildfire spread through the skies, beautiful and terrifying. In the distance on the opposite side, a tornado whirled. The stars blinked above her in a staggering number.

"Hello?"

A deer startled at her voice and leaped over a rusted car, rushing past her into the shadows. It jumped over a large hole in the earth, recently dug up.

"No, not there," she murmured to no one, rubbing her arms and looking away towards the vast forest. The dull roar of the wildfire and tornado blurred – incredibly loud but far away, like an oncoming train.

American Rust. The Junkyard. She'd told Rachel her feelings here. Destroyed so much of it in anger. Dreamed of her father. Fixed her old junker here. Saw Rachel nearly killed by Damon. Had years of talks and laughs and kisses with Rachel here. Nearly died (or actually died in other timelines). And Rachel was buried here. Was there ever anywhere more tied to her life? Even more than the lighthouse, it was here, among all this shit, that the Chloe Price she was now had been forged.

And everything that burned and died to make her that way lay in that hole in the earth.

Her legs felt weak. Everything inside her screamed to stay away, that she knew what she'd see when she looked inside. But the other thoughts, that old voice in her head that always lead her down the dangerous roads, spoke too. You'd rather have the truth, it said. No pretty lies.

"Chloe Price. I should be in LA right now. I would be, if it wasn't for you."

It was _her_ voice, coming up from the hole.

"No," she said, her voice coming out more as a whimper. "That's not…"

"My life was mine, and then you came along to drag me down. At least Frank treated me like an adult."

"Yeah, I treated her better than you ever could, Price. And _I_ was the one who died in a diner? Fuck, I saved your life, and the lives of both your girlfriends, and that's how you repay me?"

A red hot knife in her chest, still. Frank. Scumbag drug dealer. Saved her sanity and her life, saved Rachel, and then they together betrayed her. And then Frank threatened Max and…

"Chloe, you should listen to Rachel. I always liked her."

Her mother's voice, now.

"I approve, too, in retrospect," said her father, laughing. "We would have had the most wonderful funeral for her."

"I would have whipped up some eggs and bacon, and we'd all remember her together."

"How about some beans too?"

"Beans too, Frank. That's alright."

"Chloe, I can't say I approve of your new choice. Sure, we loved Max when she was a kid, but she left us. She left you."

"William is right, Chloe. She abandoned you when you needed her most."

"And she killed you, Joyce. Can't forget that."

Chloe ran past the hole, tears in her eyes.

_This isn't real. Your parents weren't like that. Rachel…she was a lot of things, but she wasn't like that._

There was only one safe space in the Junkyard now. The clubhouse still stood strong, light glowing from inside. The soft sounds of a radio playing in the distance. Chloe pushed through the entrance.

Max was curled up in the corner of the clubhouse, a thick blanket around her. She looked like she was crying.

"Max?"

At that, Max jolted up, staring at Chloe with a mix of joy and disbelief.

"Chloe?"

"What…what are you doing here? Is this…you, or are you just…part of my dream?"

Max pushed aside the blanket and nearly tackled with her a hug. "Oh God, Chloe, I'm so sorry, I miss you so much…" Max buried her face into Chloe, wrapping her arms around her, her face wet with tears. Her sobs wracked her body, and Chloe reflexively held her tighter.

"Max, what, you're okay, we're okay…"

"No, I thought this is what you wanted, but I can't do it! I can't live here, I can't do it. I'm not strong like you were. I've been through more than I can handle already."

"Max, it's okay. We're together, we're alive. We're…we're in Nevada, remember?"

Max tilted her head up.

"What? No, you're…you're dead, I watched Nathan kill you, I sat and watched and let you die…"

_Wait, Chloe, this isn't…it's not your Max._

"You went back. You did what I told you and went back through the picture. You," Chloe swallowed, "you saved Arcadia Bay."

Max nodded. "But not you. I didn't save you."

"Max…you…if you're real, if this is really happening…when I'm awake, when I'm not here…you _didn't_ save Arcadia Bay. You chose _me_. We're alive and together and…in love…"

Max backed out of her arms. "Wait, what? You mean…all of my choices…"

"I think they both happened. I think there are…other timelines. You made one choice in yours, but a different one in mine. I'm really…I'm really dead where you're from."

"But alive in the other," Max whispered. "So, Arcadia Bay…is anyone alive?"

That knife in her chest again. God, would this ever go away?

"Some people. David, actually."

"But…Joyce? Kate? Warren?"

"…"

Max let out a long, slow breath, and crouched low on the floor, hugging her knees. "There was no right choice. How can that be true? There's no possible way that everyone could live? Why did I get these powers if not to save you?"

Chloe crouched low to be at Max's level, and put a hand on her knee. "I don't know, Max. I don't know."

Max put her hand on Chloe's hand, and looked up at her. "I'll find you. I don't want this world, I want the one with you. If both of these worlds exist, than at least Arcadia Bay lives on in this timeline. Just let me be in yours."

_But what about 'my Max?' What about the Max who chose to save me, who regrets what had to happen but not actually doing it, who ripped that picture and chose me, who kissed me in bed at the motel? This Max was my friend, and went through all the same shit, and made all the same choices until that last one by the lighthouse. What happens to my Max if this one takes over?_

Max let out another sob. "She's me. I was with you the whole time, Chloe. _I'm_ your Max! I'll…find a way…I'll wake up from this dream, and I'll find a way."

"Wait, Max, what…"

Max leaned in and kissed her, her face still wet with tears.

The curtain tore, and darkness gave way to light.


	6. Interlude: I Cried to Dream Again

[A JUNKYARD, at night. Our heroine, MAX, on the floor of the CLUBHOUSE. A lantern glows in the corner. An unseen PROSPERA, standing outside, upon a most suspicious mound of dirt, already excavated.]

PROSPERA: My friends, you come upon a dreary sight

The girl who drowned her love to save the Bay

For none can know what sorrow holds her heart,

What memories are now nothing but dreams.

MAX: C'mon, c'mon…damn it!

PROSPERA: Despair had nearly split her soul in 'twain

For what is sacrifice compared to love?

But hope outstretched its azure wings and flew

Into her home to kindle life again.

MAX: This is where it happened once, right? She came back to me…she…she's alive somewhere, somehow. I can fix this…I can fix everything. This world is safe, so I can just go to where she is…

[MAX outstretches her hand to naught]

MAX: Chloe! I saw you…that wasn't a dream, I…I know it! I know it. You were real! All of it was real, and so…and so was that…we were in love, you said. I wish I'd known it sooner…God Chloe…

[PROSPERA enters the clubhouse, unnoticed by MAX]

PROSPERA: My friend, I know the question on your lips:

'Dear Prospera, this is not my Maxine.

She is in the desert with Ariel.

Though what has happened there, I do not know.'

But friend, the truth is harder still to grasp.

This is the Max you knew from all the tales.

The one you watched and helped and hurt and loved

She watched in fear as Ariel was slain

By Caliban, until she brought her back.

She danced with Ariel for scare a week

And found my body rotting in the soil

But still my tempest came to cleanse the bay

And kill the devil and his employers.

MAX: Please…I love you Chloe Price…

[PROSPERA leans down and touches MAX's arm. A most fanciful IMAGE alights on the opposite wall. ARIEL, in a CAR, another MAX holding her quietly in the darkness.]

MAX: Chloe? Wait, Chloe, this is real, there _is_ another us…wow. This is insane. Chloe…I'll find you, I'll find the world where you're okay and we're together…I'll find you…

[All action ceases, MAX frozen in place. PROSPERA stands up.]

PROSPERA: 'Dear Prospera,' you ask, 'what have you done?

There cannot be two Maxes in one time

My heart lies with the one who saved her love

And bears the cost of death inside her soul.'

I know your heart, dear friend, you understand.

But I believe this Max deserves love too.

I owe my Ariel at least this much.

[END SCENE]


	7. A Rotten Carcass of a Boat

The world was right again, or as right as it could be, given the circumstances. Chloe and Max sat in the truck, watching the rain come down and leaning against each other, hand in hand, nestled underneath the road-side shop blanket. Max nestled her head against Chloe's chest and squeezed her hand.

"So that's what it was like for you? Watching me fall unconscious?"

"Yeah. I freaked. So…so I know what it's like. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault, Chloe."

"I guess. I tried to control this…whatever it is. I didn't take the power from you, and I can't do it by myself, but there's something…I have some of it. Shit, I don't understand any of this. You sure you didn't get your powers from some mysterious old stranger who gave you a manual?"

"I wish. In the stories there's always some kind of explanation."

"Maybe your powers do have some kind of rule, but we're just tiny puny mortals who can't understand it."

"Maybe."

Chloe sighed. "I don't regret it."

"What?"

"Holding your hand. Doing the whole 'time travel' thing. Even if shit got crazy. I feel like…I understand you more."

Max glanced up at her, fingers intertwined with Chloe's, lightly dancing on her palm. She kissed her cheek.

"Yeah, me too. It's such a weird feeling, Chloe. I knew you believed me about it, but it's another thing to know you know what it's like. Like, I'd already gotten used to this being part of my life you'd never really know about, not fully."

"And now?"

"It's scary." She smiled. "But it's good."

"Fuck yeah."

The sound of thunder boomed overhead, and Max pressed into Chloe more.

"Chloe?"

"Yeah, Max?"

"Did you see anything? When you were unconscious?"

"Like what?"

Max looked away. "I don't remember everything, but it was…weird. What I saw when…when it happened to me. I just thought, maybe you saw…"

"Some weird shit, Max. Some weird shit."

"Oh no, how will I ever handle weird shit? I don't believe in weird shit."

"Shut up," Chloe laughed, "That's fair, that's fair."

"So what weird shit did you see?"

"Um, it's really fuzzy. I was at Blackwell for part of it. And the beach. And the junkyard."

"Was there a giant squirrel?"

Chloe was glad she wasn't drinking something at the moment, because she knew she would have spit it out. "A what?"

Max shrugged. "I saw a giant squirrel."

"Really? Wow. No, I didn't see a giant squirrel. There was a whale, though. And a lot of other…a lot of other Chloe Prices."

"Sounds like heaven to me."

Chloe raised her eyebrows. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? One of 'em had red hair."

"That _would_ be cool, but I think I'm partial to the blue. I've only seen you with it for like two weeks. I'm still not over it."

She leaned up to kiss Chloe softly.

"I'm still not over this either."

"Wow, Max Caulfield with the moves..."

"It's easy when you rewind every time you fail."

"Wait, you didn't…"

Max laughed. "No no no, I didn't, I swear." Her face grew serious for a moment, and Chloe could see the weight of all of this wasn't ever going to leave her, not really, not fully. "I don't want to try it again until we're sure this works. Five days, and if everything's fine, I'll try it again."

"Promise me though, if it works, we can use it to get some better food? I love Funyuns as much as the next guy, but shit, Max, I need some actual food."

"I promise. Dinner'll be on me."

"It's a date."

* * *

They marked the spot on their phones and slept in a nearby motel. Every day they kept an eye on the weather, wandering around outside and raising their hands to the sky. It rained most days, just as it had been for two weeks now, but no time-induced tornado ripped through the area. They spent a lot of time in convenience stores, deciding what combination of cheap food they could afford and how long it would last them. They chased each other like kids through the empty Nevada desert, the parked car in the distance visible even when far away, like a strange hulking statue. They napped in each other's arms inside the car. Max slept a lot – not well, not for long, but often. Chloe let her hands drift through Max's hair gently to lull her to sleep, looking out the dirt-smeared window at the empty expanse and the whirling rain.

She thought a lot about dreams.

She used to dream a lot about her father. They were never uniformly good or bad. They felt like being with him, even in some small way, so she felt a bit of hope and love. But they often ended with him dying, or burning, or revealed to be something much darker. Even in the more normal dreams where she could convince herself for a moment that they were reality, she would know he was dead. It was as if dream-Chloe knew that her father couldn't possibly be alive, but was convinced that in this particular circumstance, it was perfectly normal for the dead to return to life, maybe once a year.

The dreams had come less often in the years since his death, but they were replaced by worse ones. Dreams of Max purposefully leaving her alone in her darkness, or dreams of her mother or Rachel dying. She remembered one night in her room, Rachel asleep in her arms, when she jolted awake in tears from some fragmentary dream of herself at Rachel's funeral. She let out an involuntary sob, waking up Rachel, who sleepily turned towards her.

"You okay? What's wrong?"

She'd made that weird sort of laugh-cry she usually associated with Max. "Just a dream…you…you were dead. I was at your funeral."

"Did you give a good speech?"

"What?"

Still half-asleep, Rachel turned to her and kissed her on the cheek. "I bet you'd give a kick-ass speech. 'Rachel Amber was amazing and talented and a really good fuck. Like you would not believe…'"

"Shut up," she'd said, laughing. She pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. "Don't joke about that."

"It's okay, I'm never dying. Not until we're old and in some Europe or some shit. Famous, glamorous, rich, badass grandmas. "

"With a ton of tattoos."

"With a ton of Louve-worthy tattoos on our saggy, old people skin."

They'd laughed for a long time before falling asleep again.

It was weird, what you remembered. How much of life set itself up as foreshadowing for all the different ways it could go. Like how last conversations with people who died always seem so important, so heavy with purpose, when of course they could have never known.

She thought about dreams, but not about the last time she saw Rachel. Not yet.

Now in her dreams, it was Rachel who appeared alive, or her mother, or even goddamn Frank. Or somehow worse – that Max was dead. Killed in a car crash, Chloe thrown to the side, forced to watch everyone she loved die. That was the price she paid for defying fate and surviving.

Dreams could fuck off.

Yet she couldn't stop thinking about the beach with the other Chloes, or the other Max in the clubhouse. It felt so real. Tons of dreams felt real until you woke up, but this one stayed that way. The old Chloe would've just smoked a bit until she didn't think about it anymore. Hell, even the Chloe that drove off with Max after the storm would've wanted to do the same thing. But the Chloe who'd experienced time travel herself…she was different.

_It's all the same Chloe, stupid._

But what about the weird vision of Max at Blackwell, crying over her? What about the obvious fucking fact that she had superpowers, or at least super-adjacent-powers? Max had talked about seeing weird shit before because of her powers. Why not Chloe? Had she really seen the Max from another timeline? One who'd done everything else the same but at that last moment, decided to do what Chloe herself had suggested and let her die to save Arcadia Bay?

* * *

Things went bad on the fourth day. They'd driven to the spot as usual, waiting for some kind of apocalyptic sign that they'd fucked with time too much. The sky grew dark, and they were ready to head back home. Chloe turned the key in the ignition, but her beloved car only shuddered and groaned.

"Chloe? Is this normal?"

"It's just old, probably nothing."

There was a loud clanking noise.

"It happens occasionally," Chloe said. "Normally it's just the once."

The noise came again. And again.

"Chloe…"

The car sputtered.

"No, no, fuck no, c'mon you piece of shit!" She slammed the side of the car. Obviously ignoring her pleas, the car continued making the repetitive clanking sound, spitting out smoke.

"Chloe…maybe we should call a tow truck or something?"

"It's just…this happens all the time…it just needs a little push…" She stepped on the gas, hard.

The car lurched forward into the desert, Max yelling beside her. And there, in the middle of the Nevada desert, Chloe's car gave a loud gasp, belched smoke, and broke down.

"Fuck! Can you rewind that?"

* * *

Turns out, Max didn't want to rewind, _just in case._ They had a little over one more day to wait, and then, if nothing bad happened, she'd try again.

Chloe tried not to mumble under her breath as she cautiously opened the car's hood, standing back as another small cloud of black smoke billowed out. She coughed into the crook of her arm.

"Something wrong with my car, ma'am?" asked Max, leaning against the car, looking adorable.

"Well see, here's your problem, ma'am," Chloe said in between coughs. "Your car's all fucked up."

"Ah. Is that bad?"

"For my paycheck? Nope. For you? Hell yes."

Max walked over and wrapped her arms around Chloe from behind. She whispered into her ear. "Mechanic Chloe is kinda hot."  
"All the Chloes are hot, Max, we've established this." She kissed her, and playfully pushed her away. "Now stop distracting me, Mechanic Chloe has to fix our ship before we're eaten by sharks."

Max raised her up her hands innocently. "I'm not doing anything. I'm just your loyal assistant."

"Then fetch me my toolbox, loyal assistant. It's somewhere in the back."

Max bowed, and headed back inside the truck. Chloe could hear the sounds of Max opening up compartments and moving around the various assortments of junk they'd compiled in the week or so they'd been on the road.

She turned her attention back to the car. It must be the engine, right? She'd brought this car back to life three years ago. She'd be damned if she was going to let it die again.

"Car, you saved my ass before. Now let's do it again. Symbiotic relationship, right?"

For the next two hours, she tried every method she could think of, working through the various potential problems, checking the oil, the engine, the pipes, and all the other makeshift fixes she'd bolted in over the years. Finding the exact problem was difficult, because every part of the car was ancient and failing.

"Damn it! Fuck!" She kicked the car and tossed the rag onto the ground.

"Chloe, it's okay, we'll figure it out."

"Are you going to figure it out? I'm the only one who knows fuckall about cars, and I don't know how to fix it either. Fuck! We're stranded, that's what. Until some creepy serial killer comes and picks us up in his van 'cause we're two poor lost little girls out on the highway. Damnit! Powers would really be useful right now. But the fact that we're having this conversation means you don't use them."

"S-sorry…" Max took a few steps away and turned her back. She was clutching one arm with the other hand, her head hung low. Immediately Chloe felt guilt rush through her, mingling with the hot anger.

"Max, I…damnit, I got angry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

"No, you meant it."

Chloe's stomach dropped.

_No no no, don't fuck this up, fuckup._

"Okay, yeah, I meant it but it was still a shitty thing to say. I get why you don't use your powers. Forget I said anything."

Max got back into the car and shut the door.

Chloe ran her fingers through her hair. "Damnit."

* * *

Hours passed. They were too far from the road to attract random passersby wanting to help – and Chloe was glad for it. She'd tried searching the internet for advice, tried a hundred different attempts and minor fixes, but nothing seemed to work. The car was dead, or so close to it that it didn't matter. Their grand adventure, over already. Even if Max wanted to rewind time, whatever was wrong with this stretched a lot further back.

She sat down, her back to the grate, her beanie in her hands.

_Aren't you supposed to be good with cars? Didn't you fix this one?_

_Yes, but I was in a real fucking insane situation back then. Adrenaline must have helped._

_And this isn't a real fucking insane situation?_

_More insane, less desperate._

_You're being chased by an apocalyptic time storm that wants to kill everything it can just so you die._

_You don't know that. Could just be climate change._

_You know it doesn't work like that. You'll never be free of this, not until you're dead. Which, come to think of it, you definitely should already be._

_Shut up._

_Max is going to get caught in this storm, eventually. Even if you fix this car – which you won't – it'll die somewhere down the line. You'll slip up. Max will die._

_This is just a thought. I don't have to listen to it._

_But you do, Chloe. You do._

"Chloe?"

Max knelt down beside her, her eyes blurry with sleep.

"Max, I'm sorry," she said, looking away. "I'm a shit person."

"If you are, then I am too," Max said. "God, Chloe, we're dealing with a lot right now. I'm surprised we haven't fought more. We're good. As much as anyone can be good."

Up above, the stars were blinking into focus. Not many, with the light pollution from the cars out on the highway, but still a good amount. Not perfect, but worth looking at. Still beautiful.

"Should we call a tow truck or something?" Max said, her neck also craned to look up. She reached out for Chloe's hand, and she took it.

"I'm tired, Max. Is it okay if we save that for tomorrow?"

Max leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Sure."

"Cool."

"Let's get inside," Max said, clutching her arms. "I'm cold, and it's starting to rain."

* * *

Both of them climbed into the car. Once the door was closed, Chloe shifted, laying down with her legs sprawled out over Max's.

"It's insane. It's the 24th – seventeen days since all of this started. Only seventeen days."

"Wow."

This felt nice. She could fall asleep here and feel completely comfortable, completely at ease, even despite everything. Thoughts of Rachel and her mother and Arcadia Bay faded into a dull ache, the sharp pains rounded down.

"Seventeen days ago I was trying to blackmail Nathan Prescott. I thought shit was bad then."

"Seventeen days ago I was afraid of turning in a picture to the Everyday Heroes contest."

"Our lives were pretty different, huh? You, pursuing your dreams – me, pursuing large sums of illegal cash."

Max laughed. "Still Chloe, though. Underneath all the awesome punk aesthetic."

"The 'awesome punk aesthetic' is Chloe, I don't know what you're talking about. I've always been this cool."

"I seem to remember a science nerd who wore sweaters and played in tree-houses."

"Yeah, like I said, cool."

They sat in silence for a moment. Max reached down and started playing music from her phone. How many times had she ever gotten the chance to just sit and be there? A few times in her life, sure, but lately any time alone had brought up thoughts she'd rather not engage with. Joyce. Rachel. Even David.

"Max."

"Yeah, Chloe?"

"I wanna tell you about something."

"Of course."

"I mean, compared to all this it seems pretty stupid, but…before all this happened it was the most insane thing that's ever happened to me."

Max looked down at her. "Is this about those three days with Rachel?"

Chloe nodded. "Yeah. I never really gave you the details, huh?"

Max shook her head. "Only that you skipped school and got expelled."

"Okay, do you mind if Chloe Price enters storytelling mode?"

"Please, I'm always ready for a good Chloe Price story."

"Well. It was 2010. I was sixteen. Still going through shit, but I was still at Blackwell. I saw a future sometimes. My stepd…David was dating my Mom but he hadn't moved in yet. I had a few people I'd call friends. I was really into this band called Firewalk."

"Oh, I've heard of them before."

"They're sick. They were having a secret show at the Old Mill in town."

Max's brow furrowed. "Wait…someone was talking about how that burned down…three years ago…"

"We're getting ahead of ourselves, Max. So I'm at the Firewalk show, after sweet-talking my way past the guard, and I'm drinking and buying weed from Frank, and then I climb up to this higher level – I wanted to avoid some skeevy shithead guys – and Firewalk is fucking fantastic, and I'm just jamming out by myself, and then they come up and start threatening me. I figure they're bluffing, but the guy pulls a knife and I start freaking out. Then, out of nowhere, this insanely cool girl shows up and distracts them long enough for me to whack one with a bottle and escape with only a wicked black eye."

"Wow, punk at sixteen, huh?"

"You know it. This is where the blue hair comes in, but not yet. Anyway, so the girl is…Rachel, of course, and we party for the rest of the night. Next day at school, she pulls me aside before chemistry into her theater class and is like, majorly flirting with me. And I think you know this, but Rachel is…was…friends with everyone. Super popular. Never really talked with me before, not seriously. I'm so confused about all of this. Happy confused, but confused. So we hang out for a bit, and she puts makeup on my black eye, and then she asks me if I want to skip class with her."

"Uh oh."

"Yeah. Little did I know, right? But, I knew I just wanted to spend time with her, and I hated Blackwell, so the stars aligned and we left. Rode the train for a while and made it to the lighthouse, actually. Everything seems to happen there."

Max said nothing.

"So anyway, we have a good time watching people, until we see this guy make out with this woman, and Rachel starts acting all weird. We make it to…to the junkyard…and…I don't know, everything starts falling apart. We end up…arguing and she's ready to leave, so I just tell her the truth."

"About what?"

Chloe sighed. "Sorry, Max, do you really want to hear this?"

"If you want to tell it, Chloe, I want to hear it."

"Okay. Okay. I tell her…that I feel something special between us. Like friends but…more. I know it's been like, what, 24 hours? But sometimes you just know. She does the whole 'I feel the same but it can't work' thing, and then she leaves."

"Oh. Was not expecting that."

"Yeah, right?" Chloe breathed in slowly. "Yeah. I fell asleep in the junkyard and letting out some rage and then…and then…"

_A burning tree. Therapy in the junkyard. Prospera kneeling on stage. Kisses underneath the streetlamp. A smashed glass table. A roomful of stars. Damon and Frank and Rachel in the junkyard. Hours in a waiting room. Elliott and the police. Her father by the roadside. And Rachel's mother…_

_Years of adventures. Photo shoots, tattoos, movie nights. Skin on skin underneath a thin sheet, exhilarated. At home, at peace, in love._

_The smell of the body in the grave._

"Chloe?"

"You sure you want to hear this, Max?"

"If you're sure you want to tell it."

Chloe took another deep breath, and smiled. She needed to let this out. She needed someone to know.

It was a damn good story, after all.


	8. My Tale Provokes the Question

Yeah.

So.

Wow, this is hard.

_It's okay._

Yeah.

I just went berserk, Max, like intensely angry. I smashed so much shit in that junkyard. I still remember what it felt like. I've replayed it over and over in my head. Like I had my own rewind power. My life had been so shitty, and this was one good thing, one fucking good thing about to happen, and I fuck it up. There was no way Rachel Amber of all people would like Chloe Price. I wasn't even out to anyone then, not even myself, really. What was I expecting to happen?

_That's awful._

Yeah. I stopped when I saw…when I saw my dad's car. Maybe it just looked like his but there was a dent at the right spot and…it was his. I just broke the fuck down. Cried myself to sleep there. I think I had a dream or something there, but it's hard to remember. Anyway, I woke up and it was dark out and I just followed the tracks back, just feeling like shit. I knew Wells wasn't gonna like it. I knew my Mom and David were going to freak out. And for what?

But then, well, she was there. Standing by this tree. We talked it out for a bit, and she told me she was just scared. I don't remember what we said, only that it seemed to make things a little better. She really did like me, or at least felt something like what I felt.

Max?

_Chloe?_

You know you're lucky, right? I mean, maybe not overall, considering everything, but you have a living, boring-ass dad.

…

My dad was great. I think. Who knows for sure, though? Rachel's dad, he was a real piece of shit. Rachel was just beginning to realize it. Lit a picture of them two together on fire, tossed it in a trashcan, and then let out the loudest fucking scream I've ever seen. This was mythological. Like summoning the wind or something. I was freaking out. And kinda turned on.

_Kinda?_

Okay, very. It was a mix of emotions. I'm allowed to feel a mix of emotions.

_Wow. Turned on by a loud scream. Should I scream loudly next time we're in bed?_

Maxine Caulfield, you kiss your grandmother with that mouth?

_No, only you._

Dear God that was cheesy.

…

…

…

Mmm, you're distracting the storyteller. Save it for later.

_Just thought I'd help a bit._

Where was I? Burning tree, yeah…so, this seems embarrassing in retrospect, but this is where we made our plans to run away together.

_You just met her!_

Max, I don't…I don't know the words for this. Never was good at English class. It's like…I felt that she was special – I mean, obviously special in general, but specifically more like me than anyone else I'd met. Anybody else would say we were really fucking different, and that's true but we both wanted the fuck out of Arcadia Bay. We got each other. We liked being around each other. We, uh, each thought the other was hot. And then all of that intense stuff happened and we both saw we had a shot of escaping. Better with two than alone.

_Chloe…_

Alright. Alright. Day two. So I woke up, and of course my mom is pissed, and of course I get called to Wells office, but Rachel and her parents are there too.

_Is this when you get expelled?_

Patience, my young padawan. Yes, but wait for the moment.

Wells talks my ear off, drops some supremely unsubtle classist bullshit or whatever, yada yada, doesn't matter, but what matters is he says that Rachel's not going to get to be in the play as punishment.

_Play, what play?_

The Tempest.

_Ah, so you only know Shakespeare because of Rachel._

Guilty as charged. But guess who was the…runner-up? Back-up? I don't know what they call it.

_Understudy?_

Yeah, that. Guess who.

_Who? This was before my time._

Victoria fucking Chase.

_What?_

Yeah, she was a class-A bitch in my timeline too. But more importantly, I didn't want Rachel to lose the role because of me. I knew I wasn't going to last the whole time at Blackhell. I felt seriously terrible all the time, Max. Like fucked up. And here comes this beautiful, talented, complex girl who actually likes me? Like, maybe in a serious way? I…I was obsessed. Instantly. I would've jumped on a fire for her. Which I…did. Metaphorically.

_Chloe, you didn't…_

Yup. I took the credit, said I forced her to skip school, that she was just trying to stop me, etc.

_And you knew her for two days?_

I was sixteen. Shit, Max, everything else was so bad I thought, maybe, I'd get a slap on the wrist or a suspension and she'd be so thankful and she wouldn't just forget about me…

_Chloe? You good?_

Yeah…s'fine. So I fall on my sword, and Wells fucking expels me. Not a suspension, not community service or whatever, but expulsion. I had to clean out my locker like I was in prison, which, considering Blackhell, wasn't too far from the truth. David was pissed, my Mom was heartbroken, and all I could think about was Rachel. Have you had that feeling when you know things are going really wrong but you're too far in it, so you should just coast along, finish out the rest of the game even if there's no way you're surviving the rest of it?

_Yeah, I have._

It was like that. I just felt giddy. High. I spent the rest of the day at the…at the junkyard, sitting on our pirate ship and watching the wildfire burn up the woods. Rachel was supposed to meet me, and I sure as hell wasn't going home. I just wandered around the fucking junkyard, working on my car.

_Your car? This car?_

Bing bing bing, we have a winner.

 _You found this in a junkyard?_ The _junkyard?_

Yeah. Crazy, right?

_Wowsers._

Uh, Max? Ixnay on the owsersway.

_You love it._

I know. So, where was I? Yeah, so Rachel comes over. Things are cool between us, maybe better than cool. I thought we were really going to leave soon. Not immediately or anything, but within a few months. So she goes to get ready, and Frank shows up.

_Seriously?_

My life is nuts. There's a convoluted story that is related but not super necessary here, but Frank wanted me to get money back from this jock at Blackwell, Drew, or Frank's boss was going to get pissed. So since I was…well, formerly…a Blackwell student, he thought I'd be up for it. So I did it.

_Wait, so you snuck into Blackwell, where you were literally expelled from that same day, to go steal money from a drug-dealing jock, all for Frank?_

Well it sounds dumb when you put it like that.

Hey, don't laugh. You're not allowed to laugh at my dumb-ass past self.

_I'd be so worried about you if I didn't know you came out alright!_

I almost didn't. I snuck in, that was easy enough, and I got the money, but then Damon Merrick –

_Who?_

A piece of shit.

_That probably describes a lot of people in our lives._

Ah. Very true. Uh…a piece of criminal shit? 'Friend' of Frank's? Drugs and murder and other shit I never knew about.

_Yikes._

Second worst person to ever live in Arcadia Bay. He beat up Drew outside his room while I stayed inside with Mikey. I should've gone out there, should've tried to stop him…but Drew told me I should stay inside, no matter what. And Mikey was terrified. I was terrified. I was so fucking scared. It was like I thought I knew what kind of story I was living in, you know? A fucking sad tragedy, sure, but not like a 'killed by a drug lord' kind of tragedy.

_I know exactly what you mean._

Yeah. So Drew got fucked up really bad, so I…I gave him back the money.

…

What's that smile for?

_Nothing._

I'm a heartless bastard, Max Caulfield. Don't you forget it. It was to be my last kind act.

_Uh huh._

Then, bam, I'm thrown into another drama. Rachel texts me to meet her backstage, and I figure, what the hell, my life is strange already, might as well jump straight from my near-death experience into high school theater.

_Might as well._

We go backstage, and who do I see, but Victoria Chase trying to drug Rachel's tea?

_No!_

It was low, even for her. So I made her drink her own tea after Rachel showed up, all through the power of teenage peer pressure. I'm a model example to all young children.

_Wicked._

I'm about to head out to the actual show, and then someone isn't there, so I get roped into the show.

_Wait, what? How did that happen?_

Rachel made me. Through the power of teenage peer pressure.

_Did you wear a costume? And memorize lines? And…and act?_

Yes…yes…and yes. Well, maybe on the last two. I think I did alright. We…did a little improv. Talked about running away together.

_That's…_

Stupid, I know…

_I was going to say, 'that's really romantic.'_

Ah. I can be romantic when I want to. The crowd was into it. That was the happiest I'd been in years. I guess this is why theater kids are so into it. We walked back to Rachel's house and had our first kiss.

…

Is…this is okay? I can skip over this stuff if you want, I –

_No, I want to know about you. I missed…I missed so much, and it's my fault. I want to know what happened._

Okay. Yeah. She was so excited and talking about leaving, and I thought…maybe she was just saying it. Maybe she meant it in the moment but when it came down to it, when the endorphins left and she woke up…I couldn't bear that. I wanted to leave with her, go on a never-ending road trip. We decided to leave, right then and there. Go to Rachel's house, pack up her stuff, and the get the hell out of Arcadia Bay for good. Leave on a high note while we were still dumb enough to consider it.

_What about your m…_

My mom?

_Yeah. Were you okay with leaving her?_

Evidently I would be, eventually. But no, not really, but this was Rachel and she was beautiful and I was happy and fucking stupid. So we went to her house. And that's when shit got weirder. We had dinner with her parents, because rich people eat late I guess, and Rachel couldn't hold it in any longer. She broke the table. Got her dad to tell her the truth about the woman he was with. Turns out it was actually Rachel's real mom, but she had drug problems and couldn't raise her. Or that's what he told us. Rachel freaked out – understandably – and there went our dreams of escaping.

_Wait, so Mrs. Amber wasn't her real mom?_

Not by blood, no. There was more to it than that, but we didn't know it yet. I managed to cheer her up – mostly by promising I'd track her real mom, Sera, down. I'd seen her with Frank before, so I got in touch with him and met him at the junkyard, but this time… Damon Merrick showed up, trying to scare us. We got into a fight and the fucker stabbed Rachel.

_What?_

Crazy three days, I told you. I was so freaked out, Max. I was in tears the whole time. I thought…I thought she…

_I'm here, it's okay, I'm here. You don't have to talk if you don't want to._

I do. You should know. I should say it. Okay, I'm good now, I promise. She was alive, but I had to find her mom. Sera. That's how Damon Merrick found out about us in the first place. He was connected with Rachel's dad and Sera the whole time. I snuck into the Ambers' house and found out that Damon had Sera, so I took the ransom money from Mr. Amber's office and drove to the burned wreckage of the mill to pay him off.

_That was badass. And stupid._

'Badass and Stupid: The Chloe Price Story.' It'd make a good memoir. I got there, but things were more fucking confusing than I thought. Turns out Rachel's dad paid Damon to _kill_ Sera and finally get her out of the way. All to protect Rachel.

_Chloe…_

Funny, for three years I thought that was horrible. Wrong. Killing someone to protect someone you love. I'm not so sure anymore.

… _how did you get out?_

Frank. I had a knife but…I can't really fight. Not when I need to. Damon would've killed me if it wasn't for Frank. He saved my life. Ended up killing Damon. I think. I mean, I never saw the body. But Frank lived and I never heard of Damon again. Frank was an asshole, and I won't forgive him for what he did with Rachel, but without him, neither of us would have survived those three days. And now he's probably dead too.

_Frank? I…I talked to him more in…in another timeline. He didn't seem terrible but…_

I think he was different, back then. A little softer. This was probably what changed him, to be honest. Until then he was just a dealer. And Damon was his friend. Must've been hard. All for two stupid girls. So I woke up, and Sera was waiting to talk to me, to tell me the whole story, and to beg me not to tell Rachel about what her dad was really up to. She wanted her to have her father, if she couldn't have her real mother.

_So did you?_

What?

_Tell her?_

I didn't know what to do. I agonized over it on the drive back, Max. It felt like months. I lost my dad, and I didn't want her to lose hers. Telling her would kill him in all the ways that mattered to her. But I thought about my dad. Maybe he had secrets I never knew about. I wondered, if he was here and offered to tell me a secret about him, would I want to know? I knew I'd love him anyway, but yeah. I'd want to know. Max, know that about me. I want to know. If something else weird or fucked up or just awful happens and you have to keep something secret from me, just tell me. No blissful ignorance for Chloe Price. Or Rachel, though I made that decision for her. She didn't forgive her father. The look on her face…I still remember it. Like a demon or something.

_I think you made the right decision._

I guess, Max, but now I don't know. What if…what if she hadn't known that, and she'd been in a happy family, maybe she wouldn't have gone with Jefferson and maybe she'd be alive and oh god Max I think I killed her, I killed her, I…

_Jefferson killed her. Maybe it was Nathan but it was Jefferson behind him. It wasn't you. You did the right thing._

I guess I'll never know.

…

And that's my three days. That's the shit I've been carrying for three years. That's the shit we went through before we were ever really, you know, together. There's other stuff too, Max. A long time. I wasn't…I wasn't happy, you know? But when I was with Rachel, I felt like I could be. It was so close. It was there in tiny moments, for awhile, at least. A year or two. David was terrible. My mom…she struggled. I tried getting jobs but I was just so tired all the time. And things with Rachel…at the time I didn't know why everything felt wrong. I guess we know now. Frank. I knew she wanted out of Arcadia Bay, I knew she was fucked up too, with her dad and all…she told me about her shit, I told her about my shit, we got high and slept together, we hung out in the junkyard, we got tattoos…and then there was this whole other Rachel I didn't know about. I always worried that maybe I was just seeing the actress Rachel Amber, and I guess I was? How much of any of that was real? I loved her, Max, goddamnit I loved her so much…she didn't deserve this. She wanted so much, she could have done so fucking much, and…and…I love you Max, I want to be with you, but I wish I could've saved her. Rachel Amber could've done more good in the world than Chloe Price.

_That's not -_

And I know…I'm supposed to say shit like 'deep down I knew all along,' but I didn't, Max. I loved her. I thought, 'at least this one part of my life isn't terrible. At least I have this.' And then she disappeared, and I panicked, and then everything with Nathan and then…and then…I was supposed to die? After all that? Fuck, that's the life of Chloe Price.

_Not anymore. Not while I'm alive._

Max, it's not that easy…

_God, Chloe, I know it's not easy! Both of us have been through way more than anyone should have to go through. I don't know how we'll go back to being regular people anymore. We'll probably have nightmares the rest of our lives. But we have a 'rest of our lives.'_

Thanks to you…

_And you! You can't know, but you helped me so much in all those other timelines. I wouldn't have gotten out alive either if it wasn't for you, in every version of time I've seen. You're amazing. I saved you, but you saved me too. We were supposed to die, and we told space and time to fuck themselves because we weren't going to die, not yet. And now you can come with me? We have so much left to do._

Max…


	9. The Washing of Ten Tides

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Some light sexual content early in the chapter.

"Max…"

She was crying. Goddamn it, she was crying. Here she was trying to be personal and romantic with the girl she loved, and she was crying about another girl.

_Damnit Chloe._

"I'm sorry…"

Max leaned down to kiss her, her hands still tangled in her hair.

"I'm here, I'm here, Chloe, I'm here."

"God, Max, why did you do it? All of those people…for me? I haven't done shit with my life…I never even finished high school, I'm high all the time and…and I…and I…"

Max held her closer, lifting her head from her lap closer to her own. Their foreheads touched. She was crying too, but smiling?

"You're Chloe Price. That's why. I love you." She shrugged. "Who knows why that happens? All I know is you've been the most important person to me my whole life. Even though…god, Chloe, I should've been there for you. I could have…we could have…I just didn't know how to make things better and I thought I'd just remind you of everything you couldn't have…"

"Max, that's not…"

"Anything you've done or haven't done is nothing compared to what I've done. You lost so much and you had no one there for you. You turned out alright. You still have this fire I don't understand. You're still smart, and you're hilarious, and you care about things and you go after them. What you just told me? That's incredible! You risked your life in more ways than one for someone you loved, and you're…God, Chloe, you're amazing. If I could count all the times I wanted things and felt too worthless to get them…. I can't imagine living in a world without you, even if Arcadia Bay was safe. That's not a world I'd want to be a part of anymore."

Chloe's lips found Max's, and soon she'd pulled her down onto the seat with her, arms wrapping around her and clinging tightly. Max's breath came hot in her ear, her heart pounding against her. She could feel the tension in Max's back, feel the skin underneath her shirt.

"I'm here," whispered Max. "I'll always be here."

Soon their hands were everywhere, caressing, lightly tracing arms and legs and lips, and she was kissing her neck and everything was warm and right and Max was making little soft sounds and _god she never wanted to stop hearing that_ , and then her hands went lower, rounding Max's hips and slipping underneath her jeans.

Immediately Max froze.

"Ah, is this okay?" Chloe asked.

Max bit her lip for a second, then nodded. Chloe grinned.

* * *

 _Unbuckle her jeans, skinny legs, a long pull and then kisses down her thighs,_ god I love her fucking skinny legs _, she giggles and breathes fast and ragged, and my hands trail along her like she's water, like I can cup her and shape her and she moves into me and let myself kiss her thighs higher and higher and I can feel her fingers in my hair tighten and I kiss her and she's warm and she makes a little sound I've never heard Max make and wow she's so warm and her cheeks are red and now her hands go towards my clothes and I let her, god I wanted this, I've thought about this, hoped for this, and I don't think of Rachel, not much at least, and when our faces touch and I see her, really see her, I know that she needs me, wants me, and god it's so fucking hot and there's her neck there and the space below it and I keep my lips heading down and I push her legs apart and she lets out a long breath and I go down and she's laughing, wow she's laughing, god I love her laugh, but I've never heard it quite like this before._

* * *

"Wow. That was…that was so good." Chloe could feel the sweat coating her body, plastering her hair to her forehead. She felt her heart hammering. She couldn't feel her legs.

Rachel laughed, her hair trailing down and brushing against Chloe's legs as she pulled herself closer, her smile somehow saying "Yes, I'm incredible" and "Wow, you're incredible" at the same time.

"I'm glad. I've been thinking about that for months."

"Fuck, me too," said Chloe.

Rachel raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that what I just did?"

Chloe pulled her closer for a long kiss, not even caring. The train passed by just outside the window of their clubhouse, roaring in the darkness like some kind of mechanical mountain lion. A lion, but friendly. Reassuring.

They passed a joint back and forth for a while, saying nothing, trying to shutter off any hint at a world outside of this one, of the probable futures their lives would travel down. Nothing mattered except this shitty clubhouse, and this shitty beanbag chair, and the train outside, and each other, warm and close and alive.

"So, I have to ask."

"No, not my first time. Yes, my first time with a girl."

"You _can_ read my mind, Chloe Price! I'll have to be careful around you from now on. Can't let you know all my secrets."

"Too late. I know everything. Rachel Amber, perfect straight-A queen of Blackwell, is actually a tattooed bisexual soon-to-be-dropout rebel dating a tattooed gay-as-hell already-dropped out rebel."

"You got me there."

Chloe leaned in and kissed her on the neck. "I've got you everywhere."

Rachel curled into her, her eyes half closed. "For now."

"What?"

Rachel's hand found Chloe's, and she laced their fingers together. "You have me for now. You will for a year or two, and then you'll share me. And then I'll be dead."

"Rachel, that's not…that's not funny…"

"I think it's pretty funny. Ironic. The great Rachel Amber, killed in a rich guy's bunker for some pictures. For art." She blew out smoke. "And what's even funnier, is that you'll die a few months after me. Killed by the same guy. More or less." She passed Chloe the joint. "Also, Nathan runs out of the bathroom, and you live. Then you die again. And again. And again. And then not."

"I don't understand."

"There's nothing to understand. Life isn't a fucking story, Chloe. There's no great lesson to be learned, no AP English _Bildungsroman_ coming-of-age shit. There's no closure. Every door is always open."

Chloe let go and tried to stand up, but she felt sick. The stone floor of the clubhouse was wet. It smelled like mildew and dirt and oil.

Footsteps in the dirt outside.

Max stood in the doorway, tears in her eyes. "Chloe?"

"Max?"

"This is my cue. Exit, stage left." Rachel stood up and headed towards her pile of clothes.

"Wait, don't go!" Chloe tried to stand again, but the ground lurched beneath her. Rachel shrugged on her clothes, buttoning up her red flannel shirt, apparently unfazed. Max leaned against the door, clutching her bag in one hand, biting her lip in fear and confusion.

Rachel turned to her, putting in her raven feather earring. "You can't have us both, Chloe Price. It doesn't work."

"Why? Why does it have to be like this? We can bend time, me and Max, I…I remember that. Why couldn't you live? Why couldn't everyone live?"

"She's dead, Chloe," said Max. "She's dead, and I'm not. You're not." She leaned down and took Chloe's hands in hers. "I've been trying to find you and I think…I think I'm very close. I'm almost there. I don't deserve you, I know, I've been a terrible friend but…you're the only thing that matters to me now. You always have been."

"Most of the doors you go down, I'm there," said Rachel, turning her back towards both of them and heading towards the door. She gripped the edge and turned back. "You don't see her often. But when you do…"

She trailed off and shook her head, grinning. Then she walked out the door.

_"Awake, dear heart, awake!"_

* * *

The world shuddered. Chloe opened her eyes.

The car was flooding. A torrent of rain drummed against the outside, echoed by the loud rolling thunder. Lightning sliced through the sky like veins, and in the illumination, she could see the rising flood around her.

She was alone.

"Max?"

_No no no no no no no no_

She felt it all then, those memories she'd kept in the basement of her mind.

_Her mother, crestfallen, at the door, a fallen bag of groceries spilled at her feet._

_Damon Merrick stabbing Rachel, and the frantic drive to the hospital._

_The day Rose Amber called her, her voice wracked with worry, asking if Rachel was with her, if she was running away, if Chloe knew what had happened._

_The stench in the junkyard._

_The body inside. Rachel's._

_And Max's._

"Fuck this."

Her car groaned. Thunder rumbled. She grabbed her bag and scrambled out the open door, the water up to her chest. Wind whipped her hair and filled her ears.

"Max! Max!"

She was still dreaming. That's what this was. She was asleep in the backseat of her car, Max nestled against her, only in danger from grief and memories. The storm that destroyed Arcadia Bay was in the past. This was her own shame and guilt and fear bleeding through into her dreams. She'd been having weird dreams lately anyway. Why couldn't this be one too?

But the water was cold. It stung. It soaked into her clothes and into her bones. It felt just like being near the lighthouse, telling Max to let her die, hoping she wouldn't.

_Maybe this is real. Fuck._

She tried running, but the water was too high. She took a deep breath and dipped below into the muddy water, hoping that swimming would be faster. It was, but she couldn't see anything. She resurfaced. In the empty darkness of the desert, all she could see was water.

"Chloe!"

The voice came from somewhere in the distance, but it echoed, circling around her.

"Max? Where are you? I can't see anything! Max!"

"Chlo-chlo-loe-chl-chl-chloe," came the rippling voices.

She ran, the wind and rain whipping against her, laughing at her.

_We're not going to die here. We didn't destroy Arcadia Bay to fucking die here._

"I'm coming! Keep yelling!"

The darkness pressed around her. There was no way to tell if any cars were nearby, somewhere in the distant place where the roads once ran. The persistent thought that she'd caused this, that Max was right and she should never have used her powers again, that the world was breaking because Chloe Price survived, kept being battered back by worry over Max. She didn't deserve any of this. They could still have their lives. They just needed to survive this, then never touch the powers again, and go on living. Somehow.

She needed some advice.

"Things are really fucking shitty right now."

"I'm sorry."

"I wish you were here, Dad."

"Me too."

"Dad?"

"Yeah, Chloe?"

"If – when – I find Max…I could go back and save you. It'd cause another storm, but we could find someplace else, or get in a boat or something…or…"

"I'm sure you'd figure it out, sweetie."

"Would you…would you want that?"

"I'd definitely love to be there for you as you grew up. Being dead is…well it's not all it's cracked up to be. But…"

"But what?"

"I don't know who you'd be. We've been having these talks for a while now, haven't we?"

"Ever since you died."

"Ever since I died. And I've gotten to know you as you are now. Strong, and smart, and pretty badass. Pardon my French."

"Ha. Thanks, Dad."

"Of course. You'd still be you, if I had survived. But you'd be different. Do you think you'd have your blue hair? It's a good look for you."

"I don't know. Maybe. I know things would be really different. Maybe I wouldn't have been with Rachel, but…maybe I wouldn't have needed to be. This is so damn confusing."

"Chloe."

"Dad?"

"I can wait. I have forever. You can't. You might want to take a look at that."

A raven flew past her, illuminated in a flash of lightning. She followed its course through the darkness.

Somewhere in the flat, now flooded lands of Nevada, there was a hill. And a tree. Impossibly.

Max crouched underneath it, shivering.

Chloe felt the mud squelch between her fingers as she climbed up the hill, hand over hand, foot over foot. Max, soaked, head lolling, lay against the tree trunk. The raven sat in the branches, cocking its head to once side, as if watching her. Or mocking her.  
"Max, Max, please, God please…"

She pulled the rest of her body up the hill and collapsed onto Max, shaking her. After a few seconds, Max's eyes flittered open.

"Chloe?"

She pulled Max close in a hug, not sure if she was crying or laughing or something in between that had no name. She was okay. Max was alive.

"I'm so, so sorry. You were right. We shouldn't use the power anymore…it's fucked up. You were right…"

Max hugged her back, harder than she had anticipated, and then started kissing her. Chloe would never turn down a kiss, but this…there was a hunger in it, something she hadn't felt before. She pulled back. Max was sobbing, but smiling.

"I did it! This is real…Chloe, this is real. I'm here!"

"Yeah, we need to get the fuck out of here. It's definitely real…you okay, Max?'

Max let out a whoop of joy, hands outstretched to the sky.

"What the fuck?"

Still smiling, Max turned back to her. Instantly her eyes flicked away, then back, something in her mind whirling. "Chloe, I'm so sorry…I…in another timeline, I didn't rip up the photo. You told me I should go back and let…let you die, to save everyone. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, but I did it, and you were right. The storm didn't come. Jefferson and Nathan were arrested. Everyone lived. Everyone except you."

_Max curled up on her bed in Blackwell, sobbing in the darkness._

_All the other Chloes on the beach, roasting marshmallows._

_Timelines. Paths taken and not taken._

"You're…you're a _different_ Max."

"Yes…I mean, no, not really, I'm the same Max, I'm the same Max that played pirates and was your best friend and left you and saved you from Nathan and…and everything. I'm the same Max…I just couldn't live with my choice. It wasn't worth it."

The rain kept coming, and the singular tree swayed. The raven kept its claws tight on the branch, looking down at them. It squawked.

"But what…but what about the other Max?"

Max blinked. "I don't know what…"

"The other Max. The person who kissed me in the hotel room, who went on this road trip, who I just had…that's not you?"

The look on Max's face was familiar, not because she'd seen Max with it, but because she'd seen it too often on others. The look a person got when the one pillar they had holding up their life started cracking. The look her mother had when she got the news about her father.

Max bit her lip, holding back tears. "It's me, Chloe. I'm… me. I…I don't know what happened in the last few weeks but everything before that, all our lives, it still happened. Jefferson and the storm and Rachel and everything. That's me."

Chloe's head hurt. Her heart hurt. This was Max - that was true. She knew her face so well, knew the little vocal tics and shudders, even though Max had only been memories until not long ago. She would always be Max, her partner in crime, her pirate, her friend. But what about the Max she'd grown to know over the past few weeks? This was the same Max, really. If she asked her the questions about her life, she'd respond the same. It was just like a bit of amnesia, or a really fucking bad hangover, right? It sucked that those memories were gone, but they would stick together for years to come. What did a few weeks matter?

_But this Max let you die._

_You asked her to! You begged her to!_

_You didn't really want her to do it. You were relieved when she tore up that picture._

_I...yeah. But I was prepared for her to do it. I was ready. This Max saved Arcadia Bay._

_But she didn't save you._

_But she obviously regretted it!_

_She doesn't get to have both realities._

Both realities. That was the truth, wasn't it? Two – at least – timelines. Of course there had to be multiple timelines, she knew that. She'd died in a lot of them, hadn't she? But when Max changed things, she'd always assumed the other worlds just…stopped happening. Why? She'd seen enough sci-fi to know about the many worlds theory. But did every action split off into another timeline, or just the one's Max messed with? What happened to the mind of the Max who was here before? How did any of this work?

Wind pushed against her like a titan's hand, blowing her beanie into the gnarled branches of the tree. Max scrambled to her feet, looking up at the sky. Chloe turned.

A tornado whirled above them, just like before. A cyclone of noise and terror taking up the entire sky. For a second, she thought of the rising wildfire of three years ago. Something wild and natural, but twisted, given purpose. Like a demon.

"Uh Max, we've gotta go," said Chloe. She grabbed Max – whichever Max she was - by the arm and pulled her down the hill. The raven flew ahead of them, clutching Chloe's beanie in its claws. It hovered in place for a moment, flapping its wings and cocking its head, and then turned and plunged into the darkness ahead.

Chloe followed. It didn't make sense, but she could barely see anything anyway. Dark clouds of fog obscured the endless stretch of desert, the yellow-green of a storm flickering inside. She could only see Max's face when lighting lit up the sky, framed like a series of pictures. Terror. Worry. Confusion.

They kept going, following the raven into the shadows. The water level rose, and soon Max had to swim to keep her head above.

_How can the water be this high? We're in a flat desert?_

At the edge of her vision, something large stirred beneath the water. She froze.

"Did you see that?"

"I can't see anything," shouted Max, her voice barely rising above the storm.

In the shadows, Chloe thought she saw something break the stillness of the water. A whale? Another flash came, but nothing was there. Chloe shook her head and kept moving. One foot. Another. Check on Max. One foot. Another. Check on Max.

Check on Max.

She was alone in the darkness.

"Max? MAX!"

She dove into the water again, hands waving. A terrifying minute passed, until her hands caught onto a slim wrist. She pulled.

Blue light swam around both their wrists like another tornado, one smaller, more intimate, and more beautiful than the two others they'd seen in the past month. The water around them was sucked into the blue light. Everything was loud. Her ears were bleeding. Red pressure bore down against her, and everything went dark.

* * *

The blue light left, and in its place was a clearing in what looked like a long stretch of untouched woods. A few sunken boulders loomed around them, with emerald moss covering them like jackets. Thick trees, their gnarled roots digging into the wet ground, clustered around them. The raven hopped from claw to claw atop a long branch. Chloe's beanie lay on the roots of the tree.

Max, still clinging to her arm, groaned and shook her head. A thin line of blood trickled from her nose. "Chloe? What…where are we?"

Her head felt like it had been crushed in someone's giant hand. She felt wet liquid in her ears. "I don't fucking know."

"What happened? We fell asleep in the car and then…did we go back in time? Did I do this?"

_Fell asleep in the car?_

Chloe took Max by the shoulders. "You…you ripped up the picture, right? You let the storm hit Arcadia Bay?"

Her eyes flickered again. For a moment, Chloe could see the space around Max's body distort, as if every small movement left a smeared imprint of where her body had been. As if she was doubled. The moment faded, and Max was whole again, blue mist trailing away like smoke.

"Yes…I don't understand. This has to be a dream, right?"

She hugged her, breathing in her smell, feeling her chest move against her. It shouldn't have mattered. They were both Max. But this one…this was _her_ Max.

"I don't think so. Max…I have to tell you something. About…well, you. Another you."


	10. With Raven's Feather from Unwholesome Fen

Years ago – if time meant anything here – the Prices and Caulfields had gone camping in Munson Creek Falls. They'd pitched three tents – one each for the couples, and one for Max and Chloe – underneath the shadow of a thicket of large trees. In the misty early mornings, Max and Chloe would wake up early and draw comics, their papers and markers illuminated by the soft glow of the sun streaming through the tarp. William and Ryan would march out at dawn to go fishing – Ryan always returned with a good catch, while William turned his failures into funny stories. Joyce would go for a solitary walk, leaving Vanessa there to watch the kids, though she spent most of that time reading.

Most of the days were spent hiking around the falls. The couples clustered ahead and talked about whatever adults talked about, but for Max and Chloe, the hikes were expeditions on mysterious forgotten islands. Buried treasure, pirate traps, and ghosts awaited around each cliff and in the deep recesses of every cavern.

Chloe remembered her father fashioning swords out of sticks and playing Bloody Bill, the great pirate foe to their swashbuckling heroes. In one particularly daring adventure, Bloody Bill faced off against Captain Bluebeard and Long Max Silver, outside of the roaring waterfall of the Skull Caverns. The nefarious pirate lord had cut off Long Max Silver's leg, leaving her curled up and forgotten on the stones. He took a menacing step closer to Captain Bluebeard, who found herself stepping backwards towards the edge of the cliff.

"Arg, there's nowhere left to run, Captain Bluebeard. I've defeated your friend and soon you're next! I'll have the treasure of the Skull Caverns all to myself, and you'll both just be two skeletons warning future thieves and scoundrels not to mess with Bloody Bill!"

"The only thing running is your mouth! Come and face me like a man!"

Bloody Bill gave his famous evil laugh and swung his mighty blade. Captain Bluebeard raised her sword and met the blow, sweat beading on her forehead. She was strong, but Bloody Bill's blade was heavy with the souls of all he'd killed. Alone, she couldn't defeat him.

But she wasn't alone. She looked behind her foe, nodded, and shouted "Now!"

Bloody Bill turned behind him, but it was too late. One-legged Long Max Silver had pulled herself through sheer force of will right behind her mortal enemy and plunged her cutlass deep into his side.

"Gaaahh! Nooooooo!" he cried, dramatically falling to his knees. His cursed sword fell from his hands and clattered down the cliff. "You…can't…defeat…me…"

He slowly unwound himself until he was lying down on the stones, gave one last strangled cry, and died, tongue sticking out.

Triumphant, our pirate heroes explored the waterfalls, each hoping to be the first to find the treasure. Pirates turned into hide and seek, and eventually, the two exhausted kids laid down, their backs against the wet walls behind the water.

"This would make a great picture."

"You should've brought your camera, stupid."

"I didn't want it to break!"

"Well, you'll just have to take a picture with your mind."

Max squinted, and raised her fingers in a makeshift camera. "Click, click." She turned from the waterfall and directed it at Chloe. "Click, click."

Chloe grinned and let her hair fall down over one side of her face.

"Click, click. So artsy. So mysterious. Stare off dramatically into the distance. Yup, that's good. Click, click. 'Wow, what do you call that shot, Ms. Caulfield?'"

"Well, what do you call it?"

"Uh…well…I call it, "Girl in Waterfall."

Chloe snorted, her head pitching just enough to hit the waterfall. She shrieked, and Max laughed, and soon Chloe grabbed her and pulled her under the torrent too.

Later that night, nestled together in the tent after their parents had gone to bed, kept company only by the sounds of crickets, Max had turned to her.

"I wish we could live here."

"In a campsite?"

Max elbowed her. "No, I mean in the woods! In like a big log cabin or something, at the top of a mountain. We'd get water from the river and grow our own food."

"I could chop wood for all those cold winters. And hunt deer and stuff."

Max made a face. "I don't want to kill things."

"Food comes from killing things, you know that right?"

"Yes but let's just say we didn't have to."

"Supply drops from the sky?"

"Yeah, supply drops. And we could live here and I could take pictures and you could climb stuff or do science experiments and nobody would bother us."

"Sounds pretty sweet. I think I'd go insane living with just one person if it was anybody but you."

"Me too."

Chloe took a deep breath. "So no marrying for us, then?"

Max turned red. "What?"

"I mean, we're not going to marry any boys or anything. Just two badass ladies, right?"

"Oh, yeah, right. Maybe. I don't know." She turned back to look up at the top of the tent. "I just know I want to hang out with you. Everything's better with you there, even boring stuff."

"Totally. I know what you mean. Like if shitty things are happening, at least I know Max is there. And it can't really be that bad, then. We can still go somewhere and talk or draw or whatever." Chloe took Max's hand. "Promise me we'll still be friends when we're older?"

"I promise. I won't leave you, Chloe."

* * *

In a forest clearing, somewhere and somewhen unknown, Chloe told Max everything she knew about the other Max. The one who let Chloe die to save everyone else.

"So there's another Max, trying to get to this timeline."

"Yeah."

"Shit."

"It was just like that night outside the fucking Vortex Club party. You just…became a different Max for a few minutes, and told me about…about the timeline where my dad lived. And then you forgot everything for half a day until you just came back again. I guess I always wondered who you were in between. Was that Max another person with your memories? Where did they go afterwards?"

Max hugged herself tighter. "This is supremely fucked up. She's me but I _can't_ let her come into this timeline, Chloe. I _can't._ " Light shifted through the leaves above, casting Max's face in a rotating series of shadows and angles.

Chloe took Max's hand. "Hey, hey, you're not gonna die. Not while I can help it. I'll fuck up anyone who comes close, even if it's another you."

Max leaned against her, saying nothing. Chloe could feel her shake underneath her fingers. A storm in her head.

Whispers filled the silence - vague pieces of phrases she half-remembered. Things she'd heard once, in another life, only now peeking through the torn fabric of time. Focusing on them made her drift away, see multiple Maxes overlapping like a kaleidoscope, and she forced herself to tune them out. This was _her_ Max. Let everything else go.

"You said you saw squirrels?"

"What?"

"When you passed out the night of the tornado. You told me later that you saw a lot of weird shit, right? Including giant squirrels?"

"Ha. Squirrels were the least weird part of that, Chloe."

"I've seen some weird shit too. Ever since the tornado." Chloe held up her own hand, looking at it as if it belonged to someone else.

"Yeah. Whatever happened to me…something like it must be happening to you."

"Is that why we're here? Wherever here is?"

"I don't know. My powers keep changing. First it was just rewinding time. Then I froze time, just the once, trying to save Kate. Then I could go through pictures. Every time I feel like I understand the rules, they change. Maybe this is something like what happened with Kate. You have some kind of powers now, and you tried to save me, and then…"

"We're frozen in time."

"Something like that."

"It kinda feels like Arcadia Bay. Dunno why, but I get that feeling."

"Like Arcadia Bay in a dream. Without people."

"Yeah."

"Do you think she could find us here?"

"She?"

"Me. The other me?"

Chloe felt her fingers tighten into a fist. It was so surreal. Their enemy in this had become Max herself. It felt wrong.

"I don't know. You know more about the power than me."

"That's what doesn't make sense. She – I – shouldn't be able to just travel into other timelines, not without a picture. It's always jumping back, making a change, then seeing the new timeline. But she didn't change anything. Both of our timelines already existed."

"Maybe it's like you said. Her powers leveled up or whatever. She felt really…guilty, and the way opened up."

Max's face hardened. It was a look she'd grown to know over the past few weeks, but not one she'd ever seen in Max when she was younger. This was the Max forged from the horrors she'd seen, the one who stared death and madness in the face and survived.

"She's me, so I know what I'd do. If I managed to find you and then got sent back, I'd try again. I'd do anything, Chloe. I know I've told you about what I had to do to get to you again but…it's nothing like actually doing it."

Chloe stayed quiet. She had a thousand questions, but she let the gears in Max's head work their magic.

"Chloe, we have to go. Get away from this place, and the timeline we left. Otherwise she'll find us."

Chloe said nothing. She didn't know what to say.

The raven cawed to fill the silence. Chloe saw the flickering edges of the other Maxs again, and pressed her hand to her forehead for just a minute. When she looked up again, Max was at her side, worry and fear and guilt – always, always, guilt – etched into her.

"No, that's stupid. It was a dumb idea," Max said.

"It's not dumb. It kinda makes sense, as much as any of this time travel shit makes any sense. It's just…how are we going to do that?"

As if in answer, the raven flew down from the gnarled tree and paced in between Max and Chloe, hopping around to look at them both.

"CAW!"

The raven leapt up again and flew over them, fading into the mists and shadows at the edge of the clearing. A single feather drifted down and danced in a gust. They followed it toss through the air and land a few yards away. Max stumbled back into her and pointed.

The shadows cast by the campfire distorted and twisted themselves into human shapes, ripping themselves away from the fire and shambling towards them.

"What the fuck…"

A few turned into dozens, and then hundreds, the twisted forms of people of all ages and sizes, some carrying the silhouettes of briefcases, some long fishing poles, some backpacks slung against their sides.

"They're…Arcadia Bay. The people in the town…" Chloe whispered. Knowledge came easier here. She knew in her gut what they were, even if the why and the how remained outside her reach.

"This is Arcadia Bay. Or a shadow of it. If that's true, then," Max said, her words trailing off as she looked behind them, out past the trees. Chloe followed her gaze, and standing strong against the night – the lighthouse. Where everything started. And ended. And would start again.

Wordlessly, Max took her hand, and they headed towards it, the ghosts of the dead at their backs.

* * *

The shadows followed like marionettes, limbs jerking and hair trailing. Chloe pushed on, wishing as she often did that she'd quit smoking. Her lungs burned. Max was just ahead of her, holding out a hand against the wind.

Along the road, the shadow figures stretched out of trees, emerging from furrows and gnarled roots, splayed fingers grasping at the bark. One figure looked up at her, and fire burned where the eyes should have been. A slit opened where the mouth was, and she could hear Nathan Prescott's voice.

_"The isle is full of noises."_

She felt a brief stab of pain in her stomach. The raven cawed, and she turned away to follow it. The path ahead curved upwards along the familiar slope, but now the ground was littered with fragments of stone and plaster. She recognized the blasted refuse of Arcadia Bay on the morning they drove away. Signs of lives destroyed in an instant. Remnants of a past world that meant nothing in the face of a cosmic horror.

She picked her way up the path towards the lighthouse. Max was ahead, shouting back at her, but her voice was muffled. Chittering voices and whispers rustled through the leaves. The shadows kept coming, faces twisted into echoes of people she knew. Her parents, reaching out for her to join them, become a family again. David, in full army gear, gun pointed at her, face emotionless. Jefferson, glasses reflecting light, standing over her own corpse, a pistol in one hand and a needle in another. Merrick, holding a knife, his face twisting into Franks and back again. Rachel, tied up, her eyes flashing death. Max in the bathroom, bleeding from the stomach, Nathan fleeing through a door shining light.

"Chloe!"

She bolted away. Max grabbed her by the arm. "Don't listen to them. Come on!"

She nodded, and followed Max up to the lookout point. Arcadia Bay lay in ruins. Smoke hovered above it, conforming into the shapes of the old buildings. A city of the dead, building itself up with wreckage and ash. Max pulled her past it, towards the lighthouse. It's metal door was open and swinging.

They stepped inside.

* * *

From the vantage point of the top of the lighthouse, everything in the world was either the roiling ocean or the swaying forest. Darkness pushing up against darkness, with the tiny flicker of their campfire piercing through. A star in the night sky. A beautiful lie.

The sound of thunder echoed in her head, and her entire body shook. The songs, the laughing, crying, shouting voices of her past, all wove their notes around her head.

"Holy shit," whispered Max. She leaned her hand against the glass around them. "Do you feel that?

"Like I'm about to fucking explode? But not in a bad way? Just a weird as hell way?"

"Something like that."

In the distance, the star that was their campfire blinked larger, swelling and swelling until the trees around it shimmered with heat too.

"It's burning," Chloe whispered.

Max gripped Chloe's hand. "It's okay."

"Max?"

"I feel okay. I know, it's so not normal to be okay right now. But I am." She smiled. "You're coming with me this time."

"With you? Where're we going?"

"Not back to that other time. Not yet anyway. The other Max knows about that place. If some versions of us are still there in the storm…but no, I can't go back there. I fucked up too much. If this is true, if there are multiple timelines, if every choice I could have made always happens anyway…"

Chloe put her hand on Max's shoulder and squeezed. "Then there are better worlds out there."

"And worse. I don't know if I should feel more guilty, or less. Chloe, maybe this power was a mistake. Maybe the whole point was that I shouldn't try to change things."

"Fuck that. You saved my life. That was a change."

Max inhaled, then nodded. "Fuck destiny."

Chloe grinned. "Fuck destiny. You – we – have a power. If something gave us this just as a warning against using it…well that's bullshit. We can make a better world."

"I swore I'd never do that again…"

"Okay, so if my Dad lives he buys me a car and the accident slowly kills me. Alright. We don't change that. But there's still better futures out there. If every option always happens, then there's always a better world for us."

Outside, the fire greedily engulfed more of the forest. The ghosts swarmed the lighthouse, clawing over themselves like ants.

Chloe looked at Max. A thousand different expressions warred on her face. This could all go very badly. Nothing they'd managed to do in the past month had gone right. Arcadia Bay was gone, or hurt terribly. Rachel was dead all along. Joyce, Frank, Max's friends, Blackwell, the Two Whales…all of them were gone. They'd saved themselves, but fucked up everything else. Common sense told Chloe that they should just stay here in this strange new world and let themselves be consumed by regret. It was safer.

But Chloe had never been one to lead a particularly safe life. Maybe Max had, but that was the old Max. Not this one. Chloe didn't want to live in a world where honest attempts at helping people were punished by fate. Maybe that was the world they lived in, that everyone had to follow. Maybe, but not everyone had powers. Max had cheated death and fate for her. Maybe together they could do more.

"Chloe."

"Max?"

"If you come along with me on this, then you should remember everything. I don't know what'll happen to us, or where we'll be, but whatever you are, I'm going to find you. I'm never leaving you. Not again."

Chloe pulled her closer and kissed her, letting the wildfire and the storm and the dead drop away for a minute. Outside of Max, nothing made sense. The world and her life was one giant knot of confusion and horror and fucking insanity. But Max made sense. She was her lighthouse.

"Me neither. Lead the way."

Blue light swam around them as they held hands. They each put a hand to the mirror at the lighthouse's center, and in an instant the forest and the death around it faded away into a shimmering tapestry of pictures. Every picture they'd ever taken together, blurring in and out like the world's largest dark room. Pictures, yes, but also drawings, and journal entries, and hazy videos that could only be dreams or memories. It was their lives, all the records of their friendship and love and life that the world had remembered, in polaroid, ink, or neurons.

"So what now?" asked Chloe.

"I told you I'd never leave you. I broke that promise, once." Max smiled, tears in her eyes. "I'm going to fix that."

Red pressure. Blue light.

And then…

" _Someday Dad'll get one of them newfangled computers."_

" _I hope the flash didn't scare you, Max. This is a keeper."_


	11. Interlude: The Dark Backward and Abysm of Time

[THE PRICE HOUSE, early evening. Backyard. PROSPERA is swinging on a swing-set. MAX, sitting on the bottom of the slide, crying.]

PROSPERA: My friends, we find ourselves here yet again,

the day when Ariel's father bid farewell

to life and love and secrets yet untold.

MAX: I was there! I saw her! But the storm still came, and she…she wanted the other Max? Oh god, I should've torn up that picture, I never should've gone back. Fuck! I fucked everything up. Chloe!

PROSPERA: His vessel oft did crash upon the shores

of tar and metal, blood and fiery roaring.

Some Times he journeyed on a diff'rent craft

and lived to curse his daughter into death.

MAX: Did we die in that flood? Is that the only option? Is Chloe destined to die no matter what, even with my power? Then what was the point? Why did I get this if it only makes things worse? Even when I tried to go back and fix it, never use it, it only makes everything worse! Why does Chloe deserve this?

PROSPERA: What more could our young lovers hope to gain

from yet another change of course for him?

Or do they seek a different path entire?

A world where grief was met with comfort, and

love bloomed in the grass above the grave?

Young Max's great mistake wiped off the slate

and the Devil's plans wrecked with future's sight.

Would that not be a world worth fighting for?

[RAVEN alights on the swing-set.]

RAVEN: Caw!

PROSPERA: Shoo! You're too early!

RAVEN: Caw, caw!

PROSPERA: Fine. Stay there. See if I care.

RAVEN: Caw!

PROSPERA: The lovers' noble plan will not succeed,

for the dark backward and abysm of time

contorts itself in ways no mortal knows.

My years of study of the arcane arts

have taught me only one essential truth:

Magic does not obey our rites and rules.

No sooner do we think we know its ways,

then it changes all our understandings.

[RAVEN alights on PROSPERA's horned mask.]

RAVEN: Caw.

PROSPERA: Raven, what have you done to my great play?

For too long have you guided Ariel.

You helped her fall in rapt'rous love with me,

and brought her to a fen outside of time.

Her heart is cleaved in twain for want of love's

certainty. For she's pulled between us both.

RAVEN: Caw.

PROSPERA: Of course I know the lines were changed before!

We have been allies, friends, and foes anew.

But would I be here, dead and gone, if not

For the story you told of my father?

The path I took to shake the darkness out?

I might've found the strength to match the Devil

And lived to sail the seas with Ariel.

Why twist the plot so? Why interfere for

another stretch of time? Go back to your

home in Arcadia Bay. For that is your

essence and purpose in all of these times.

We both shall weave our tales from threads of time,

and see which tapestry will hang aloft

in the worlds to come. Now leave me be, bird!

[Raven flies offstage, into the storm.]

PROSPERA: Apologizes for going off the script.

The raven has a way of distraction.

Though truth be told, I cannot focus well,

Prospera holds a multitude of selves.

Arcane mistress, rebellious punk, wizard,

daughter, scholar, addict, liar, and doe.

My aims are hidden even from myself.

I dreamt of fame, LA, the open road,

someone to change my life for all of time.

I earned both love and hate in equal shares.

So now I play my parts with passion full,

some god o' the island outside of time.

A sky of tangled threads for me to weave.

MAX: Oh god, Chloe…

PROSPERA: And look, this sorrowful girl at my feet

wanted nothing more than Ariel's love.

Her world was saved, but at a cost too dear.

The stories say her path was right, that she

Has sacrificed her childish ways and grown

Into a woman. She gave her love

one week of joy, and learned that choices must

be endured and consequences embraced.

MAX: Okay. I'll try again. I'll keep trying. I did it once…I can find you again.

PROSPERA: Though our paths may differ now, the Raven

and I on this agree: fuck that bullshit.

[PROSPERA leaves swing-set and stands at sliding door to THE PRICE HOUSE.]

PROSPERA: We will not content ourselves with the roles

we were given by gods or fate or chance.

Every door is always open to us,

even if some paths lead us to our doom.

[PROSPERA whispers an incantation, and THE PRICE HOUSE begins to catch flame.]

[END SCENE]


	12. Some Tricks of Desperation

The first thing she saw was Max, thirteen again, small and young and nervous.

The second thing she saw was her father, his arm around her, a camera in his hand.

There was nothing else she could do, no other possible branching timeline from this moment, this version of future-Chloe's mind in past-Chloe's body: she hugged her Dad. He was there. Solid. No longer a ghost of a memory. No longer a version of herself dredged up from her mind and given a shape she knew. No longer a photograph sealed up behind glass. She'd forgotten what he smelled like. How it felt to hug him, to wrap her arms – skinnier than she was used to – and bury her face against him.

"Wow, I guess you really like the picture, huh?"

"Dad!"

"Yes, honey?"

He was so real and alive and here and she was young again, and all the grief and nightmares and drugs and loss and tears were only memories. They didn't have to happen, anymore. Her dad was alive.

"Is everything okay? Did I do something?"

"No, no, I just…" Chloe looked up, wiping away tears. "I just got really emotional, I guess. I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, sweetie."

The phone rang.

"Hold on, let me get that."

Chloe felt something sick and solid forming in her throat.

_Don't take the call._

"Chloe, follow me. I've got the keys," Max whispered, tugging on her shirt. She followed, in a daze, as Max opened up the sliding door screen and pulled them both out into the backyard.

"Holy shit."

"Chloe, we have to be careful."

"Holy shit."

"Chloe, listen to me."

"He's alive. He's right there. I'm…"

"Chloe!" Young Max gripped both of her arms. She'd seen this expression on the Max of the future, but not this one. Not young, scared, Max. Except…

A memory she'd almost forgotten. Max, tearful and strange, on this very day.

"Chloe, are you listening to me?"

"Yeah."

"I tried this before. I tried to save him. He took the bus and lived. But you…you didn't. I know you want to save him, I know it's _so_ cruel to let you see him and then take him away again, but you'll _die_ if he lives to give you that car."

"But what if I tell him I don't want a car."

Max stopped, confusion rippling across her face. "Chloe, I don't know…"

"I can fucking explicitly tell him I don't want a car. I'll just ride the bus everywhere, become a public transit advocate or whatever. Voila, everybody lives."

Max hugged herself, looking around nervously.

It felt so wrong to be here, five years in the past, in the soft warm glow of the afternoon fading into evening. Two kids, suddenly made aware of the joys and horrors of a life they both already lived and might never live again.

Max took a deep breath. "I've seen you die too many times. If the universe, or multi-verse, really wants you dead, it'll try to find a way."

None of the rules made sense. They'd defied enough of them already.

_Max shouldn't have brought me back here. I can't just let him go die._

"Max. Do you not get it? I fucking traveled through time with you! The universe has tried to kill me a lot, sure, but I'm still here, right? What if we already paid the price? We'll never know if it was worth it, but we've got this incredibly awesome power to fix all the shit we had to deal with before!"

Max curled up at the foot of the slide, her arms wrapped around her legs. "I just can't lose you again."

Chloe squeezed beside her – one of the benefits of being a kid again. She put her arm around Max's shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. "You won't. This time we're sticking together."

Max swallowed. She nodded, then wiped away the few tears that were forming.

"I guess we're in uncharted territory. Even if I feel like I've lived this day a million times."

Chloe could understand that. She'd lived this day more times than Max, even without time travel. A thousand different versions of what could have happened. A thousand alternate timelines. Did they all exist too?

"Can we…can we save our game or whatever? Take another picture. You know, just in case?"

Max shrugged. "It messed me up before, going back in time while already back in time."

"But it was just you before. Now it's both of us. Partners in time for reals."

"For reals?"

"Hey, I'm a kid again, I can say for reals."

"Fair."

"See, you're getting it. But think about it, together we teleported to some place outside of time. You didn't do that alone." Chloe smiled. "Who knows what other powers we have now?"

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"I'm scared too. But not of us."

Suddenly the camera appeared in Max's hands.

"How'd you…oh, rewind."

"Yeah. Let's see if this works." She aimed the camera above them, the two of them still clinging to each other. Chloe hugged Max tighter, as if the more of her she could feel and touch, the more safe they'd be. The flash went off.

"If you'll do the honors," Max said, handing Chloe the Polaroid. She flipped it around, watching the image slowly emerged from darkness. Max and Chloe, closer than they'd ever been as kids. Something different behind their eyes, as if the camera could capture the five years that shouldn't be there.

The sliding door opened. Her heart caught again. Her father, alive, real.

"Hey girls, you wouldn't happen to have seen my keys out here? I can't for the life of me remember where they were. Your mother's probably worried sick."

She felt Max's gaze on her. This was it. Give her father the keys, let him drive off to his death, live in a world where Max was there to comfort her. That was a better world. Maybe Max would come back from Seattle sooner, or manage to convince her parents not to leave at all. But even if not, they'd call constantly. She believed her now, after everything. Even if there was David again, maybe this time they'd get along, knowing what she knew about him. This Chloe had already gone through most of her teenage years. Max and her would have to go through high school again – and that was hell – but it didn't seem as bad this time. They'd dealt with worse. They could stop Jefferson before he did anything. Save Rachel. Stop all the terrible shit with Rachel's mother and Damon Merrick. And if, after everything, the storm still came, maybe they could convince enough people to leave. Or at least save their families. At the first sign of a strange eclipse, they'd be gone. It would be, undoubtedly, a better world. Fate would take the life of William Price, and save everyone else.

"No, sorry!" called Max. "Didn't see anything. Maybe you could take the bus?"

"The bus? Well, I guess. Joyce'll get a kick out of that. Alright girls, don't burn the house down while I'm gone!"

The door slid shut.

Chloe's heart didn't stop hammering. "Max, you…"

"You deserve him. You deserve everything. Just be careful. And definitely don't drive."

"Deal. I've had enough driving for one lifetime. Or a lot of them."

They sat, curled in each other's arms, for a couple minutes more. Max was taut, stretched somewhere between contentment and a watchful anxiety.

"We should be skipping forward soon," she said, looking off into the distance.

"Oh yeah, you didn't live five years in that alternate timeline, right?"

"No, usually it only lasts long enough for me to make some big change, and then everything goes back to the day I first went back. It's...confusing."

"Wait…does that mean that we'll forget about this, about us? How will I remember not to drive?"

Max jolted up. "Fuck. I didn't think of that…Chloe, we can't jump forward yet, we have to…we have to…"

"Remember. We have to remember."

* * *

_Dear Chloe,_

_Don't get a car when you turn 16. Tell Mom & Dad you don't want one ever. _

_You &Max are time travelers. Not a joke or game. You came back from 2013. You went through shit, but here's what matters:_

_You love Max, and Max loves you. (like_ love _love, seriously!) Surprise, you're gay!_

_A photographer named Mark Jefferson will start to teach at Blackwell. He's a sociopath who drugs girls and takes pics of them and will KILL! The Prescotts are involved._

_SAVE RACHEL AMBER!_

_Don't owe drug dealers $$$_

_Talk to Max every day. Text, call, anything_

_You might be able to rewind time w/ Max. Hold her hand._

_You won't remember any of this soon._

_I'm sorry._

_-Chloe_

* * *

Her letter, handwriting shaky but still legible, was tucked safely in her pocket. They were in her room now, laying on her bed and staring up at the ceiling, listening to the song from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride from Max's old Pirate Power mix CD.

_Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me_

_We kindle and char, inflame and ignite_

_Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho_

In any other context, this was basically all she ever wanted to do. Just like when they were kids, wasting time and enjoying the quiet of the sunset, hand in hand. But now it only felt like they were waiting for the tides of time to pull them away. They'd be replaced by some other Max and Chloe, who'd travel on a set path, live and love and struggle through life until sometime in the end of October 2013. Five years. Then those minds would be erased, and the Max and Chloe right now would take over, with nothing but pictures or journals to mark the passage. And what if time really did want her dead? What if the other Chloe was killed? What would happen to her?

"Fuck, this is scary."

"Yeah."

She found Max's hand and squeezed.

"This has gotta work, right? I mean, we'll just wake up here and see these and have no memory of writing it, right?"

"I think that's how it would work. I never tried leaving a note for myself before."

_We burn up the city, we're really a fright_

_Drink up, me 'earties yo ho_

"If it doesn't, at least I'll die to a pirate shanty."

Max laughed, though Chloe could tell it was more from fear than from her joke.

"The way a true pirate should."

"It's been amazing sailing with you."

Pressure in her head. Blue and red light.

"It's happening," Max said. "Chloe, hold on!"

She caught a glimpse of blue tendrils around their hands before everything burned away. Holes in paper. Burnt spots on a film reel.

* * *

_Max and Chloe waking up on a bed, notes in hand, blushes creeping up their necks._

_The entire Price family waving goodbye as the Caulfields drive away, Max's hand to the glass pane of the window, tears in her eyes._

_Max and Chloe, phones in hand, staring out at their own windows into the blue sky, no storm in sight._

_Max and Chloe embracing at a bus stop, a bag slung around Max's shoulders._

It's going too fast – I'm missing so much!

_Max hiking with the Prices, hand in hand with Chloe._

_Max and Chloe at a show, pushed up to the front, still just kids._

They're going to die. Whoever this Max and Chloe end up becoming, they're going to die when we take over.

_Chloe at Blackwell, raising her hand in science class._

Are they all like this?

_Chloe drumming in some garage, Max on guitar, Steph playing bass._

Are those other Chloes me too? If I can't remember them, are they still me? Does anything matter if we can just change it? Can I ever make a mistake if every outcome is always happening?

_Chloe watching as Mark Jefferson walks into his classroom for the first time, students swooning._

Chloe?

Max?

I don't want to miss all of this…what if something bad happens?

_Chloe and Rachel, laughing._

This is wrong.

_A raven in a dark forest cocks its head and caws. A whale falls from the sky. The sound of thunder echoes. A hundred Chloes roast s'mores on a beach. Rachel screams and the wildfire begins._

Max, what's happening?

_A rushing train bursts forth a cloud of ravens. Two moons hang in the sky. The Price house catches flame. Max and Chloe hold a child in their arms. Rachel and Chloe drive past the Hollywood sign. Max and Chloe drown in a flooded Nevada desert._

Max? Max? NO DON'T LEAVE ME!

_William in a hospital gown, bald and tired. Rachel in a hospital gown, glaring at her father. Rachel in a hospital gown, embracing her father. Chloe, paralyzed, gliding along the sand in a mechanical chair. Jefferson sticking a needle into Max's neck._

C'mon Chloe, think, you have power, use it, get off this, get out, let me out, let me out!

_Rachel as Prospera, sitting alone on an island. Rachel dead in the junkyard. A tornado above the lighthouse. Max's hand outstretched, eyes flickering like lightning. Max is Rachel is Max is Rachel is Max is_

I need to

_It was mine art,_ _when I arrived and heard thee, that made gape_ _the pine and let thee out!_

STOP!

* * *

The ringing of a bell. An old jukebox blaring. A door closes. The smell of coffee in the air. Quiet conversation.

"Chloe?"

Her mother.

"Chloe, you alright, sweetie? You look a little out of it."

Chloe opened her eyes. She was sitting in a booth at the Two Whales, her mother standing beside her, a plate of eggs and bacon perched precariously in one hand and a platter of pancakes in the other.

"Mom?"

Joyce set the plates down and stared. "Earth to Chloe."

In less than a second Chloe was hugging her. She'd thought of her in the diner – this diner – as the storm destroyed it. Dead in a rush of flames and lightning. She'd grieved for two weeks. And now, this. Was this going to be her life now? Her parents alive? Everything good?

"I'm sorry! Sorry for being a shitty daughter, sorry for everything…"

"No, no Chloe, you've been a great daughter! What's this all about?" A few other people in the diner were staring at the two. Joyce seemed confused, but touched. Chloe broke away from the hug as they both wiped away tears.

"I just…just felt like saying it."

"Well, I appreciate it, I really do. Maybe next time a little less dramatic?" She winked and walked away, pushing herself behind the counter and arguing amiably with the truckers and police officers.

Chloe ran her fingers through her hair. Her long hair. She dug into her jeans and pulled out her phone, flipped it open to see the date.

September 29th, 2011.

Three years after where they came from...but two years before the present.

_That's not how time travel is supposed to work._

Her head pounded with the aftershock of something, like a stone dropped in a pool. Suddenly she remembered. Images of time flashing through, memories and dreams and...other things she tried to forget about.

_We stopped it. Stopped the time travel._

_Max._

Another shock.

She remembered all of it. Waking up on the bed, reading the note, feeling confused and awkward and somewhat terrified. Max being forced to leave, calling her every night, visiting all the time.

This wasn't what Max described. The mind of this new Chloe had somehow merged with the Chloe she knew. She remembered the years of 2008-2011 as she first lived them - William dying, Max abandoning her, meeting Rachel, the wonderful and terrible first few days with her and everything that happened with Sera and James and Damon Merrick...but she also remembered this new life. William living, Max and hers burgeoning friendship, occasionally dipping into something more but both still too nervous to take that step. Becoming friends with Rachel, but nothing like their crazy first week.

Her phone rang. She picked it up.

"Chloe?"

"God, Max, do you…"

"I remember!"

"Fuck yes. This is insane. Where are you?"

"Driving."

"Max…"

"I didn't know! I literally had to pull over on the side of the road. It was _so_ scary."

Chloe leaned back against the window and lowered her voice. "Where are you?"

"Evidently on the way to meet you. I'm sixteen now. Again. Also, you should see me."

"I always want to."

"No really, I'm pretty punk."

"Wait, what?"

"It's really weird, I can remember this other life...we're still close, so thank god for that. But I've been...um…"

"What?"

"Well, let's say that New Old Max hasn't been taking living in Seattle well. I remember fighting with my parents a lot. I'm evidently rebelling in the Chloe Price way."

"Holy shit, do you have blue hair?"

"You'll have to wait and see."

Chloe turned to see her own reflection in the mirror. Someone she only half recognized peered back at her. This Chloe's hair hung down to her shoulders, and was her natural brown. She wore an oversized sweater, jeans, black boots, and had a nose stud. In a half-panic, she pulled up her sleeve.

A dragon tattoo snaked up her arm, long and sinuous with blue scales, antlers, and breathing what appeared to be lightning.

"This is fucking weird."

"What do you look like? The memories are coming back, but they're not all there yet."

"Hey, if I have to wait, you'll have to wait."

"I'm totally confused. But I'll be there before you know it. Do you remember anything else? From this timeline, I mean?"

Chloe leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes and straining. It almost hurt, having so many conflicting visions of the past, so many records that would always grate against each other. The new timeline's memories were more distant, like the plot of a TV show she'd been watching all her life. Intimately familiar, but at a remove.

Her father died in a car crash when she was fourteen. Her father gave her a drum-set for her sixteenth birthday.

Max never called after her family left. Max ran away from home to meet her.

She stopped caring about school, because why the fuck should she? She was a straight A student, keeping her eye on Stanford, if she got a scholarship.

She messed around with Elliott and other guys before Rachel. She had barely dated anyone, but knew she only liked girls – Max in particular.

All the memories blurred together like a painting in the rain. Did the other versions of them remember everything that had happened in the minds of Max and Chloe Prime? It didn't seem like it, they'd made too different choices. But something must have slipped through. They were closer than they were, even as kids. Max was different, running away from her life to stay with Chloe with a dedication only this version of Max possessed. They didn't remember about Jefferson…but they distrusted him immediately.

Jefferson.

Rachel?

What about Sera?

_You're thinking too much, Chloe. Just go outside. It's fucking Arcadia Bay, whole again._

"Chloe?"

"Ah, sorry. It's hard to remember anything straight."

"Yeah, wow, I feel the same. Hella strange."

"Hella strange. Well let's meet in person and hash it out. How far away are you? I'm at the Two Whales."

"The Two Whales? Is Joyce okay?"

"Yeah, she seems pretty normal."

"And William?"

"Alive. At least, I remember him being alive. The other Chloe does. Fuck, we're going to need an easier way to talk about the other versions of ourselves."

"Agreed. Let me know if you think of anything. Oh, yeah, where am I going to meet you? I'm about an hour away. How about your house?"

"Works for me. I…I have a bike? Just remembering."

"A motorcycle?"

"No, like a regular-ass bike."

"Oh. I'm going to go drive now. Probably shouldn't be talking at the same time."

"As Chloe Price, public transit advocate, I have to agree. Be safe, Max."

"I will, Chloe. I love you."

"Love you too. Wait."

"Can't take it back, you said it."

"I don't think we're, uh, a thing, in this timeline. I think we're about to be, or we're secretly a thing, or something, but we're not out yet."

"Oh."

"We can fix that."

"Good. See you soon!"

"See you soon."

* * *

Chloe Prime hadn't ridden a bike in years. This new Chloe – not quite Chloe 2 but something different – was great at it. It just made sense. She flew past people on the sidewalk – a few gave her dirty looks when she got too close, but a few waved as if they knew her. Maybe they did. She didn't think it would ever stop being weird. Thoughts kept creeping up about the metaphysics of merging memories, but the sheer fucking joy of seeing Arcadia Bay whole made the worries seem unimportant. It was a beautiful fall day. Her parents were alive. She could play drums? Max was coming to see her. She was a senior in high school.

_Weird, I never got to be a high school senior before._

She passed the beach. No dead whales. Blue skies, no storm. No wildfire, either.

She was still smiling when she pulled up to her house. It was still the same house, intact, but even better. There was still William to keep it in shape in this timeline. She searched in her purse – she had a purse!? – and found the garage keys. She let herself in and left her bike against the wall. A drum-set was clustered in a corner, with a few sticks haphazardly laying on the ground.

"Fuck yeah." Evidently her parents didn't mind the noise.

William wasn't home yet, so she walked through the house, feeling like someone had made a museum of her dreams. She'd wished for so many years that something could have happened differently, and here it was, a house with William still in it, and without David. It was so obviously familiar, but different, better.

Her room was still mostly the same, though the posters were a weird mix of expected and unexpected. This Chloe wore her love of science more openly than Chloe Prime. She still loved music, and she caught a few of the same band posters she used to have. Minus one "I can't sleep" scrawl. Plus one D&D character sheet and dice collection. Callamastia, an Elf Barbarian. Still piles of dirty clothes.

 _Good to see this Chloe isn't_ too _different._

She laid down on her bed and flipped through her phone contacts. Her parents, of course. Her messages with Max kept stretching back and back. It looked like they texted every day. She still hated emojis, it looked like. There were messages from Steph, Justin, Juliet…and Rachel. Not too many, but it looked like they were friends. She was alive.

_This better not be a dream. God, or whatever gave us this, please don't let this be a dream. We've all suffered too fucking much. I can't go through losing them all again._

A knock at the door.

Chloe ran out of her room and down the stairs, heart hammering like her drums. Her hand reached for the door. It didn't matter who it was. It was someone alive.

She opened the door.

Max Caulfield stood on the doorstep to the Price House, dressed in all black. Black jeans, a black Firewalk t-shirt, winged black eyeliner, black nails. And hair dyed black, too. She held her arm awkwardly, as if she was showing off a Halloween costume.

"Wow."

"Whoa."

"Your hair!"

" _Your_ hair!"

Within seconds they were kissing on her doorstep. This Max still smelled like the Max she knew, though her clothes had traces of smoke and weed. Up close, her eyes were the same. That's what mattered. Whatever spark of Max that made her Max, that was still there, still burning bright.

Suddenly a cough broke the spell. They pulled away quickly to see Joyce and William in the driveway, William with a large bag of groceries tucked under his arm.

Being seventeen again must have seeped into their bones deeper than they thought, for their faces lit up red as they parted to let Joyce and William through.

"Hello Max, good to see you," said Joyce, trying to hide her own embarrassment. Behind her, William grinned. He was almost laughing.

A few minutes later, her parents sitting on the couch, she stood next to Max, hand in hand.

"So…"

_Why is this so hard? You've been through a ton of worse shit. This is easy. They basically already know. What's the worst thing that could happen?_

_You don't know what they're like in this timeline, not really. Maybe Max has been a dick to them? Maybe they found Jesus or something. We can't even legally marry in this shithole country._

_They love you. They'll be fine. And if they're not, fuck it. They don't know everything you've been through._

Still, she couldn't speak. The words tried to crawl up out of her, but something kept holding them down.

"We're kind of a thing," said Max. She looked at her, smiling, a wordless support.

_My angel._

"Finally!" said William, giving a loud clap. Joyce put a hand on his shoulder.

"What your father meant to say was, we're happy for you both. We're…you have our blessing."

William put his hand on the side of his mouth, as if to whisper to them alone. "It's not like it was very subtle, girls."

Max laughed. "No, I guess not."

Chloe remembered finding Rachel's body in the junkyard. Remembered that sudden gut punch, that feeling of having every foundational pillar of her joy smashed in a single swing. Her body struggling to process the intensity of her response. The fucking anger and despair of it all.

This was the opposite of that. She couldn't understand how things could go this well. But they'd earned it, right? She'd earned this. The universe had punished them, and now they would get their reward.

"Well, let's give the lovebirds some space, and get to dinner-making, why don't we?" William pushed himself off the couch.

Chloe hugged him.

There was no possible future where she didn't.


	13. A Thing Divine

A train rattled along atop its icy tracks beside the junkyard, swaying slightly in the cold morning air. Clumps of snow fell from the nearby trees. Below her vantage point on the hill, Chloe could see the familiar shapes of wrecked cars, abandoned buses, and overturned oil barrels underneath a uniform layer of white snow. She poked the campfire at her feet with a large stick, letting her mind focus on just the simple task of keeping the flame burning.

This was her life now, in her second time around December 2011. Setting the stick aside, she picked up a thermos of coffee, taking a sip while stretching back. The junkyard sprawled below her. Was there anywhere else that felt more like Arcadia Bay to her? She'd felt at home, peaceful, in love, terrified, and devastated here. She'd even died here, in some other time. The mix of memories – games and sex and cars and stabbings and death – felt almost sacred.

Max knelt on one knee a few feet from her, peering out over the scene with her camera aimed out like a pirate's telescope. Chloe admired the view. This Max was younger than the one she'd grown to love over the course of their endless week in time, but older than the only other memory of Max she'd ever had. It was bizarre. And this Max always looked out of place in her dyed black hair, winged eyeliner, and black fingernails. The "original" Max wouldn't be comfortable with this, but now she apparently had the memories of liking it, and so she tried to stick with it. Chloe didn't think she'd ever get used to having so many memories that she hadn't lived through herself.

Over the past few months, they'd lay awake at night on the phone, reminiscing about years spent together, years they remembered having experienced and yet…hadn't. It was exhilarating and disorienting at the same time, like performing in a show you didn't know you already knew by heart.

Max clicked the camera, and Chloe saw a deer leap away from the piles of trash, startled at the flash or the noise or both. Max stiffened a moment, then returned to the log she'd used as a makeshift seat. She set her camera down and flipped the Polaroid a few times.

Chloe passed her a joint, and Max took a hit, holding it between two fingers while concentrating on the image growing slowly clearer.

"Nightmares getting any better?"

"Damn it," Max muttered, letting the picture fall to the snowy ground. "Missed it. Oh, nightmares? I guess. Not as often, at least."

"It's insane. It's been three months and it still feels like this world is the dream, and the place we left is reality."

Max caught her glance. She looked younger, but her eyes were off. Too old. Too tired.

"This is a better dream, at least." She took another hit and passed the joint back to Chloe. "Except…"

Except. Him. The one blemish in their perfect world.

"I know. We'll figure it out."

"I can't fucking stand it, Chloe. You going to the same school as him. He's there, in that same classroom, with everyone…"

"It fucks me up too, Max. It totally does. But he hasn't…we checked already. There's nothing in the bunker. He hasn't started yet. We can't get him without any evidence. You said so yourself."

Max looked away. "There's more than one way of getting him."

"Max…"

"I don't get it. You were gung-ho about killing him at the Vortex Club party!"

"That was before. I was pissed. Rachel's alive now. I'm alive. He hasn't done anything. The asshole who did all that shit is dead in some other reality."

"You think he hasn't done things? You don't just _become_ a psychopath."

"I believe you. I just…want things to be normal." Chloe got up from her side and crouched next to Max, taking her hand and pressing her forehead against Max's shoulder. She breathed in. "We did it. We made our better world, and I want to get the chance to live in it. With you."

A bird cawed. Somewhere in the distance, a car honked. A drip of ice pattered to the ground.

"Me too."

They clung together, the fire dying slowly, looking out over their world. Max wrapped her arm around Chloe.

"I don't want to go back to Seattle."

"I don't want you to go either. Stay."

"I will this time."

"We'll run away, actually go a real, non-apocalyptic road trip."

"I'll drive this time."

"I'll be so much better at drumming on the dashboard."

"On second thought…"

Chloe laughed, wiping her tears on Max's jacket. "You love it."

"I do."

A few quiet moments passed before the sound of feet crunching into snow caught their attention. Chloe jolted up. Wrapped in a fashionable peacoat and bright red wool cap, Rachel Amber waved up at them from the entrance to the junkyard.

"Am I interrupting?"

"Always," said Chloe, grinning, rubbing the back of her neck.

Rachel laughed and walked towards them, a bright red spot pushing through the banks of snow.

_I still don't know how to feel about her. Shit, I still get nervous around her. I hope Max doesn't think I'm in love with Rachel. I mean, I loved her before, but this Chloe is just like…a normal friend with her. No skipping school or performing in the Tempest. She doesn't know what her dad did. Hell, I don't even know if he went through with it._

Rachel's voice cut through Chloe's thoughts. "So we're outside now? Even with a clubhouse?"

"Better view up here," said Max, standing up. She took a picture of Rachel as she made her way up the curving path to the overlook. After it printed, she held it up triumphantly. "I call it 'Amber Ascends.'"

"I like that. Title of my future autobiography." Rachel reached the camp, and took a seat on another empty log. "So, what are you lovebirds up to?"

"You just missed all the good stuff."

"Ha. Ha."

The three settled into their usual rhythm – Rachel doing most of the talking, Chloe telling jokes and asking questions, while Max retreated, offering a few words here and there, but mostly just taking photos of them. She'd thought that Rachel and Max would get along, and she was right, to an extent. Rachel wanted a career of being photographed, and Max wanted a career of taking photos, so they could help each other that way. But Max always seemed especially quiet around Rachel. Like the old Max, not the new, slightly more rebellious Max. It made her unreasonably sad. They were friends, just like she wanted. Right?

At a gesture, Chloe passed the blunt to Rachel. Rachel nodded in thanks.

"As your token popular friend, I have a duty to invite you to the Vortex Club's Snowpocalypse party."

"Snowpocalypse?" asked Chloe. "What is it with them and the end of the world?"

Rachel shrugged and blew smoke above her. "You know. It's edgy."

"Jesus. Why do you hang out with those assholes?"

"They're not all assholes. They can be fun. They're just dumb rich kids."

"And you're the smart rich kid?"

Rachel laughed. "You got it, Chloe Price. They want to stay and be queens of Hella Shit Bay. I'm going to get out of here. Never stop exploring, never stop learning, never stop changing. That's the life I want to live."

"I think you should," said Max.

Rachel turned to look at her, something flashing behind her eyes. "Yeah?"

"I-I mean, I think L.A. suits you better. You deserve more than here."

"I know when I'm being flattered."

"Doesn't mean it's not true," said Chloe.

"I know," said Rachel, tossing her hair absentmindedly. "Thanks Max, I get it. Well if I'm fated to leave Arcadia Bay behind, what about you?"

Max met Rachel's gaze head on, something of her older self shining through. "I'm coming back."

"Back to Arcadia Bay? Why?"

Max's eyes flickered over to Chloe, and she felt something both worrying and comforting deep in her chest.

"Chloe, for one thing." She snuffed out the edge of the dying joint against the wood she was using as a chair. "And this place. The woods and the ocean, and the community. It's beautiful. Seattle's great, but…I feel like I belong here. I owe it something."

Rachel leaned back against the tree, closing her eyes. "I don't owe this place one fucking thing. One day I'll just be gone."

"Don't."

"What?"

Chloe felt the blush creep up her face. "Don't leave without saying bye. To your family. To us. To me. I know you wanna just disappear mysteriously – believe me, I've wanted to fucking disappear a lot too – but…"

"Aw, Chloe's going to miss me!"

"Of course, idiot. You're…you're my friend."

"That's what I love about you two."

Chloe started. "What?"

"You two feel…different. I mean, I know every teenager thinks that they're different and some rare precious flower or whatever, but it's true. All the other kids…well they seem like kids. You two got your shit figured out."

"Uh…thanks? I don't have anything figured out, honestly. I don't even know where I'm going to college."

Rachel threw up her hands. "That's not important. It's like you realize that most people care about dumb shit, and you've just decided to focus on each other, and fuck what everyone else thinks."

Max nodded. "I guess you're right." She looked down at the fire and stoked it to a half-life again before turning back to Rachel. "You're pretty awesome too. You're the same. I'm…I'm happy that…it's good that you'll have the chance to do something, whatever it is. Just something you want. Something awesome."

Rachel broke into a huge smile. "Wow. This is why I hang out with you two. Compliments _and_ weed? I just might stay in Arcadia Bay."

* * *

"It sucks that she's so far away."

"Seattle isn't the end of the world. Don't you talk every day?"

Steph's car pulled into the snowy Blackwell parking lot. Chloe leaned her head back against the passenger's seat and sighed.

"Yeah. But talking's not everything."

Steph raised an eyebrow and laughed. "Oh I'll bet."

Chloe swatted at her before opening the door and stepping out, careful on the icy street. She slung her backpack around her shoulder and zipped up her jacket tighter.

"I mean, she's eighteen, she should be able to live on her own. We're not fucking kids anymore."

"Uh, I thought she was sixteen?"

"Oh yeah, sixteen. Well, we're legal. She shouldn't have to stay there. She hates it there."

"She hates it there because _you're here_. Seattle's probably a lot more fun than Arcadia Bay."

"Well, yeah."

Out front of the school, the snow had settled on the statue of good 'ole Blackwell himself, giving him a fluffy white hat. A couple other students clustered in groups, talking and killing time before school started. Brightly colored lights hung from the trees, and posters with huge Christmas trees were plastered to every available surface. It still felt weird coming here as a student again.

"She's really into you."

Chloe rubbed the back of her neck, somehow still embarrassed. She blamed being seventeen again. "Yeah, we're good together."

Steph stopped and looked at her. "Have you seen how she looks at you?"

"What?"

"I've seen her when we've all hung out. It's…like really romantic…and a little creepy. Like if she looks away you'll disappear."

Something sad but not entirely unpleasant lodged itself in Chloe's chest. She _had_ disappeared, too many times. They both had.

"Hey, I can't help it if you're jealous."

Steph snorted. "Of who?"

"Max, of course. There's only one Chloe Price to go around."

_Well, technically…there's a shit ton of Chloes._

"Oh, and she rolls a natural 1…the joke fails!"

"Okay, that was worse than mine. Right? Like, it was objectively much worse."

"Callamastia continues to dig herself deeper and deeper into her hole of Dad Jokes."

"Hey, come on!"

Inside, after a quick locker stop, Steph turned to her and leaned in conspiratorially. "Hey, I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask away."

"I was thinking about asking out Rachel Amber."

Her heart beat faster.

"Oh."

"Do you think…I'd have a shot?"

_Rachel, dancing on Frank's bed._

_Rachel, posing for Jefferson, her clothes slipping, her eyes vibrant._

_She was cheating on you. Those were just the ones you knew about._

"Uh…"

The bell rang.

"Got to go!" she said, whirling away towards Physics. She didn't look back to see Steph's expression.

She had Max now. She loved Max, that wasn't in question. There was no logical reason to be jealous of anyone who was with Rachel in this new world. Rachel was alive! Let her have a happy life with someone else. She could see that a life with Rachel would never be as good as one with Max.

_That's because you'd never have all of Rachel. You have all of Max. She doesn't have a life outside of you. You made sure she made that choice._

She sat in Physics, listening to the teacher drone on about rules that no longer applied, warring with herself in her head.

* * *

Max shifted in her sleep, and Chloe adjusted to let the other girl nestle against her. She kissed her head softly, hoping that her presence would help with the nightmares. They were still coming, Chloe knew, because she still dealt with her own. She still dreamed of Rachel in the junkyard, the smell of her dead body filling her head even now. She dreamed other things too, of driving away from Arcadia Bay with Rachel, with Max nowhere in sight. She didn't want to dream that any more than she wanted the nightmares, but still, she felt guilty. She had everything she wanted. Maybe too much.

Still. This moment was right. Christmas morning, Max in her bed, breathing against her. The light from the morning filtered through the snow and ice on her window. The Prices and Caulfields together in one house, a large pile of presents arranged around the tree like a pirate's fort. She was seventeen, in love, with two great parents and a future. A real future, for once in five years.

Max shifted again, her eyes slowly shuttering open. She yawned, and stretched against Chloe.

"Morning."

"Morning."

Chloe kissed Max's cheek, then left a trail of kisses down her neck. Max leaned back, breathing slowly, a smile on her face.

"I like waking up to this."

"Me. Too."

"But…"

"But what?"

Max whirled around, pushing herself off the bed. "Chloe, I love you and all, but it's Christmas. Presents, prepare to be opened."

"Not if I get there first." Chloe wrapped her arms around Max's waist and pulled her back onto the bed.

"Hey!"

"My house, my presents," she laughed, leaving Max on the bed and running towards her door.

_I want this, every morning._

* * *

"Hold on, hold on, I just want to say something."

"There's no such thing as a Christmas toast, Dad," said Chloe.

The six of them – Prices and Caulfields alike – sat around the Price's gaudily decorated Christmas tree. The Caulfields were wearing sweatpants and t-shirts, each holding a cup of coffee. Chloe had suggested the idea that they stay up here for Christmas, and Max and William had both tried their best to convince them. They'd noticed how Max had been acting, how much she missed Chloe. And they'd missed their old friends, so a joint Christmas had been approved.

William, wrapped in a homemade ugly Christmas sweater with bells sewed into the cloth, put up one finger. "There hasn't been, but that doesn't mean we can't make it a tradition. Now, I just want to say that I'm so grateful for all of you. You're all my family, even if you're out of state, even if we're not related. I'm especially glad that we've all stayed such good friends, ever since our families have gotten a little…" he looked towards Max and Chloe on the couch, "closer."

At that, Max kissed Chloe's shoulder, her eyes still sleepy.

"Get on with it!" yelled Chloe, giggling.

William cleared his throat. "So with that message of good holiday cheer, Merry Christmas, everyone. Let us begin the unwrapping of presents!"

"You are such a goofball," muttered Joyce, kissing William as he sat down beside her.

"I've never claimed otherwise."

The Prices had always just opened presents in a mad rush, but the Caulfields took turns, one by one. But this was the Price house, so Price rules prevailed.

It was strange, Chloe though, ripping apart a snow-man wrapped present, how she still cared about Christmas. It was strange how she cared about anything. She'd been through so much, but the normal parts of everyday life still mattered, still felt real. Sure, she didn't feel the acute awkwardness and self-importance normal kids her age should have felt, but other than that...

She still eagerly looked forward to good meals. She still went to shows and sang along with her favorite bands. She still dreamed about her life in college, and what the Future Max and Chloe would be together.

Max stuck a finger into the wrapping paper and slid it open. It was a regular cardboard box - light from the looks of it. She pulled aside the tape and opened the flaps, revealing a folded piece of paper. Chloe glanced over at the Caulfields, who were looking at each other with a weird look of anticipation and regret. She already had a car. What more could it be?

Max unfolded the paper and read it to herself, eyes sliding across the page. Suddenly her face lit up.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously," her mother said, softly. "Your father and I think it's time. It'll be good for all of us."

"Thank you!" she shouted, for a moment returning to the carefree Max some parts of her remembered. She ran over and hugged them both, kissing her Dad on the cheek. She turned back to Chloe, tears in her eyes, smiling. She thrust the paper towards Chloe.

It was a picture of a house with a Sold marker in the front lawn, with the Caulfields name typed below.

And an Arcadia Bay, Oregon address.

* * *

The next six months passed in a blur. Max finished out her junior year at her school in Seattle, her grades taking a dramatic upswing. She'd be coming to Blackwell for her senior year in the fall of 2012, to coincide with Chloe's fifth year there. Chloe could have gone somewhere else to college, but the thought of going to Blackwell with Max felt too right to pass up. It felt like all the other timelines they'd lived through were the weird, comic book alterations of the true one – this one. Max Caulfield and Chloe Price at Blackwell. Together.

On one of her frequent weekend trips down to Arcadia Bay, the two had sat in Max's car, parked on the road across from the school.

"I'm going to have to pretend I don't know where everything is."

"Or not. Wow them with your amazing sense of navigation."

"I'm different, but _not_ that different. I have a lousy sense of direction."

Chloe let her hand rest on Max's thigh. "We're both a bit different. But we're still us."

"Y-yeah. Still us."

Outside, winter was beginning to thaw into spring. A few courageous squirrels danced in the snow, searching for their own buried treasure.

"I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Chloe didn't respond. She'd had the same thoughts, but maybe if they both just closed that door, didn't listen to the bumping sounds behind it…

"I made a better world so many times, and then everything got fucked up."

"There's probably not a perfect world," Chloe admitted. She laid her head in Max's lap, her eyes closed, her beanie pulled over her head. "But this one is an improvement."

Another stretch of quiet moments. Chloe could feel Max move with her breathing, their hands entwined together, fingers stroking each other absentmindedly. This was what they'd earned, together. She thought that this was maybe the point to life. Quiet moments with the people you loved. Nothing had to be happening. No one had to be saying anything. They could even be sober. She wished she could tell that to the old Chloe…or the future Chloe…or whatever Chloe she'd been when all of this started. But maybe she'd already known. She just didn't have anyone. Until Rachel. Until Max.

"What's your favorite thing about this world?" Max said, breaking the silence. "I mean, other than the obvious."

"Other than my parents and Rachel and the town not being destroyed?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm. Well, I like having a goth girlfriend, for one."

"Stop," Max said, laughing. "I'm not really goth."

"Whatever it is, it's hot."

"Yeah, okay. But seriously. I want a real answer."

"Fine, fine." Chloe opened her eyes. Max was staring down at her, a half-smile on her lips. "Okay…I just feel, for the first time in years, like I'm lucky. People don't get to do this. Shit happens, and life goes on, and we think about what could've happened or whatever, but it's usually just that. But, as far as we know, we're the only two people who've ever gotten a re-do. And it feels fucking phenomenal."

Max leaned down and kissed her, her hair trailing lightly over Chloe's face.

"It definitely does."

"What's your favorite part?" Chloe asked, her voice soft. Max's face was close, her eyes still so much older than the rest of her.

"This Max didn't abandon you."

A long kiss later, Chloe leaned back into Max's lap. "As romantic as that moment just was, I think you cheated on that question. I think us being fucking awesome and adorable counts as 'the obvious.' What else do you like? Not related to me."

"Not related to you? Huh."

"I know it's hard to think of anything in that category."

"You got that right."

"But I believe in your powers, Mad Max."

"Okay, okay. I like…being rebellious."

Chloe barked out a laugh. "Really?"

"Seriously!" Max beamed. "The old Max – before getting powers – was so quiet and shy and passive. I had so much I wanted to do but I never had the courage. It still feels like I cheated a bit, but now…Rachel was right. I know what matters. It's you. And it's understanding that there's really dark shit out there, but that having someone at your side helps you through it. And that all these people in Arcadia Bay, they're all struggling. And this place is more beautiful knowing that. Even when they're shitheads."

"I'll toast to that."

"With what?"

"How about…coffee at the Two Whales?"

"Perfect."


	14. This Obedient Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: A moment of violence near the end.

"It's really weird."

"I don't think our lives will ever stop being weird, even if nothing interesting happens again."

Max smiled as Chloe put her arm around her, pulling her close. They leaned back against the brick wall of Blackwell Academy, staring up at the school they'd both be attending, here in the glowing autumn of the new 2012. Ahead of them in the pavilion, students both new and returning milled about, waiting for the bell to ring and class to start. There were already a few circles of friends, or people who wanted to be friends. Chloe noticed the Vortex Club already arrayed in a circle, like a cult of rich asshole kids. She let the flare of anger and annoyance fill her for a moment, before the weight of Max against her calmed her nerves.

There were loners too, like the old Max and Chloe. Kids reading in the quiet, or playing a DS while sprawled on the grass. A few just wandered aimlessly, white earbuds visible against their jackets and sweaters.

Max sighed. "This place is still so peaceful. Especially after everything."

"The old me would've fought you on that one. Lots of bad memories here." Chloe hid her arms in her large sweater sleeves. "New me, though…it hasn't been so bad. School and art and shit can be cool when you're, you know, actually able to focus on it."

"Definitely. I like seeing nerd Chloe."

Chloe flipped Max the finger.

"Good to see the punk's still in there too."

"Hard to rebel when the shittiness is in another universe."

As they walked closer to the school, Chloe let her mind drift to the memory of breaking into Blackwell in the dark of night, one evening both a year ago and in a year to come. Herself, back with short blue hair and a jacket; Max, just a t-shirt and jeans. Chloe, expelled, and Max, the newly minted heroine of Blackwell, savior of Kate Marsh. The rush of fear and hate and sadness she felt when she entered the school that had done so much to her. The total strangeness of Max just opening the door to the principal's office as if she'd teleported. That stomach-lurching warmth of the night swim, just a few minutes before they'd had to make their escape.

Now, Max and Chloe were heading together into Blackwell, officially and legally welcomed in the halls in the bright daylight. Chloe, with her long hair, nose piercing, and sweaters; Max, with her dark hair, painted fingernails, and jacket. She could almost see the two worlds like photos hanging together, "Can you spot the difference?" scrawled beneath.

Chloe checked her phone again, just to shake herself into believing it. 2012. To her, it felt like 2014. She was eighteen, but she should be twenty. Hopefully, it would be Chloe's last year at this school. They'd have one bizarre and wonderful year of going to the same school before Chloe headed off to a real university for another 3 years. She guessed Max could go with her, and not spend the extra year here, but she'd warded off any real conversation about it. Let Max focus on the difficulties here, first. It wasn't like Max was in a hurry to talk about their upcoming separation after having struggled for so long to live in the same town again.

"Speaking of art," said Chloe, one backpack strap hanging off to the side as she waved to a few familiar faces. "How's the photography going? Feeling inspired?"

"Mostly by you."

"Understandable. Anything else, besides your glorious girlfriend?"

Max sighed. "Arcadia Bay. I never realized how much I missed it until it was gone. And now's it back." She leaned against one of the large trees in the courtyard and slumped down. After a few moments rummaging through her backpack, she pulled out a portfolio and handed it to Chloe. She wouldn't meet her eyes.

"I've been working on this. I…I wanted it to be a surprise."

Chloe took it, almost reverently. The embossed front cover read: "Reprieve: Arcadia Bay" with Max's name written in small script near the bottom.

"Max…"

Max looked away, embarrassed. "It's, uh, always weird when other people look at your art." She picked at a strand of her hair.

Chloe flipped it open, letting each photograph wash over her. Snapshots of a life she'd never thought either of them would get to live, captured in Polaroid.

_Chloe laughing, covering her face._

_The tracks of the railroad curtained by the shadows of the trees._

_Chloe's tattooed arm brushing against Max's leg._

_Max's parents, silhouetted against the morning light, eating breakfast in their new home._

_Chloe lost in thought, staring out at the snow-covered junkyard._

_The glowing eyes of an owl, caught staring the darkness._

_Chloe rolling a dice, her face ecstatic, as Mikey jumped for joy and Steph grinned._

_Rachel Amber, her face half-covered by her hair, the background in shadows._

_Chloe splayed out on her bed, wearing a tank-top and shorts, wisps of smoke above her like a circling dragon._

_An old couple walking on the beach, hand in hand._

_Chloe's face lit by the cyberpunk glow of Blade Runner, her attention glued to the screen._

_A homeless person outside of the Two Whales, eating a burger and smiling at the camera._

_Chloe banging on drums, her long hair spiraling around her._

_A few fisherman walking along the docks, laughing at each other._

_Chloe jumping into the waves at the beach._

_A pine tree, stretching to a brilliant blue sky._

_Chloe's face, her mouth set, her eyes deep._

_A selfie of Max, eyes rimmed with tears and lack of sleep, lit by candles, her face etched in sorrow._

_Chloe asleep, sprawled on her bed, drool puddling on her pillow._

_The parking lot of Blackwell in the dusk, fireflies flickering._

_Chloe dancing in her room, air-guitaring._

_Arcadia Bay from the vantage point of the lighthouse, caught in the glow of the golden hour._

_A selfie of the two of them, Chloe kissing a grinning Max._

She closed the book softly, the cover shutting down on the world that Max saw. An Arcadia Bay that was beautiful for simply existing, for simply having Chloe in it. A town slowly dying like all other towns. A town with the rot of the Prescotts and Mr. Amber and Mark fucking Jefferson still eating away at it, a town that could still – for all she knew – be destroyed again. But a town that Max didn't destroy. A second chance.

"Max…these are…really fucking good. Beautiful."

She could see Max's smile, even as the other girl looked down at her legs.

"Thanks," she murmured. Finally, she looked back up. "I want to take more. I still want to do this."

"Photography?"

"Live. I still want to live."

_Max…_

She knelt down beside her.

"You'd better. You didn't save me just to go ahead and die on me. Not gonna happen."

She reached out a hand, and Max took it, pulling herself up to her feet and into an embrace.

"I love you," Chloe whispered into her ear.

"I love you too."

When they pulled apart, Chloe saw a few of the other students looking at them.

_Fucking homophobes._

She pulled Max away, a little further down the pavilion towards the dorms. Max's eyes darted back and forth, her gaze towards the ground. Chloe recognized the look of a fear boiling inside.

"Is there something else? You can tell me."

Max nodded and bit her lip.

"I'm just…scared."

"About school? Listen, fuck anyone who gives us shit, alright? I can't believe in the year twenty goddamn twelve people still freak out about 'the gays.' Like, we're all fucked from climate change – or from time climate change, and we've got way more to deal with…"

"It's not that. I don't care about that."

"Ah. About classes and shit?"

Max shook her head. "I mean, a little. I have to get good enough grades to get into college. A real college. But that's not really it. It's… _him_. He's there. I have to go to his class. Sit through there without trying to stab him with a pencil or something."

"As much as that would be both epic and deserved, you should probably not."

Max smiled. "Still weird to have Chloe Price as the voice of calm restraint."

"Still weird to have Max Caulfield as the voice of righteous fury."

"I think we've rubbed off on each other."

Chloe raised her eyebrows. "Oh we've definitely rubbed off on each other. As often as we can."

Max laughed and pushed her playfully. Chloe burst into a long stream of snorting laughter, and the two walked, arm in arm, into the doors of Blackwell Academy. Home of their old lives. Home of their new lives. And home of the devil himself.

* * *

It only took two periods until her first day was poisoned.

Rachel Amber, books held between her arms, talking to Mark Jefferson.

Something inside her seized up, digging claws into her heart. The familiar heat of anger, blood boiling. This was from the old Chloe. She understood this kind of hate. Before she understood what was happening, she had thrown herself into the conversation. Jefferson looked up at her and smiled.

_Dead-eyed fucking bastard._

"Chloe Price, star pupil of Blackwell. How was your summer?"

Rachel, maybe sensing something in Chloe, put a hand on her arm. Another kind of heat boiled in her. Another holdover from the old Chloe.

"Filled with band practices," Rachel said, smiling.

"Band practice? You're in a band? Let me guess…drums?"

_Fucker._

"Uh, yeah. How'd you know?"

"You just have that sense about you. Call it – my photographer's eye." He turned to Rachel. "And Rachel, are you in this band too?"

She put a hand to her chest in mock humility. "I'm just the singer."

He stretched his mouth in the shape of a smile, like the ends of his mouth were held up by puppet strings. "That's great. Music isn't my specialty, of course, but pursuing your artistic goals is always worthwhile. May I ask what the band's called? I won't pretend to know the genre – I'm probably already too old to get it."

Rachel laughed. "We're called Everybody Lies. Kind of a punk thing."

Jefferson raised an eyebrow. "Everybody Lies? What world-weary soul picked that name?"

"Me," said Chloe. "I've never seen it proven wrong."

Jefferson's eyes flickered. Chloe imagined a shark in his place, black eyes lolling back into his head, his sick smile ringed with rows and rows of teeth spiraling endlessly down.

"A pessimist already?" Jefferson laughed. "Just like me at your age. I'd thought I'd understood the dark heart of the real world."

"And now?"

There was a long moment of silence before he finally spoke.

"I hate to be that guy, but – you'll learn when you're older." Another fake smile. "Talk to you girls later. Now go get to class."

With that, he turned and walked back into his classroom, the door slamming behind him. A second later, Chloe grabbed Rachel's arm.

"You shouldn't talk to him."

"So you've told me before. What's your problem with him? He seems cool, as far as teachers go. And he's kinda hot."

Chloe forced back the vomit in her throat. She remembered thinking the same thing once. Her hand still on Rachel's arm, she pulled her further down the hallway, past the ambient mass of students, broken off into small groups to talk and flirt and stuff each other in lockers.

"Where are we going?"

"Bathroom."

"Why?"

"Just wait a sec."

Once inside, Chloe checked each stall, as well as the space behind the stalls. When she was sure they were alone, she turned back to Rachel and took a deep breath.

_You didn't tell her for almost a year. Why now?_

_Because I fucking can't stand it any longer, that's why now._

_She's not going to believe you. She'll think you're insane._

_She trusts me. She knows me._

_You know her. Telling her not to do something is just going to make her want to do it more._

_Not this. Now let me do this before I change my mind._

_Your funeral._

_Not funny._

"Jefferson…he's a creep."

"What?"

_In another reality, he drugged girls and took pictures of them. He killed me, and killed Max, and maybe even killed David. And because of him, you died._

"I…I saw some of his photos fall when he was getting in his car. Girls, tied up with rope and tape, completely out of it."

"Chloe, do I have to explain BDSM to you? It's a thing. It's consensual."

"I fucking know BDSM, Jesus." Chloe blew out a long breath, her fingers digging into her own arm as she clenched it. "These girls were messed up. He seemed really freaked out when he saw I noticed them."

Rachel pressed her hand against her forehead. "That's just his style. Have you seen any of his other art projects? I mean, it's a little extreme, and they probably weren't safe for school or whatever, but that doesn't mean he's a creep. It's a style of art."

"Please don't tell me you want him to take pictures of you."

Rachel narrowed her eyes. "And if I did? You don't get to tell me what to do."

"Ugh! Just trust me on this, okay? He's a psycho. You can find another photographers. Get Max to do them. She's great."

"I don't think Max wants to take photos of me."

"What? She's done a ton of them for you already."

"She does it to make _you_ happy. She does everything to make _you_ happy. She's like your own little puppy. And now she's at Blackwell, following you around. You can tell Max what to do. You can't tell _me_."

Rachel rushed past her, shoving her aside as she made her way towards the door.

It wasn't right. They'd done so much – changed so much – and still Rachel was following her same track. She never learned about her mother or was betrayed by father or even fell in love with Chloe, but still she was going to get close to Jefferson. And be killed for it.

_Rachel in the dark room._

"I'm not fucking losing you again!"

Rachel stopped, her hand hovering at the edge of the door. In the silence, she turned around slowly, her confused face mirrored above the faucet.

"What?"

_Fuck._

"Nothing."

Rachel took a step closer, her voice clipped and cool, her eyes narrowed. This was Rachel at her most powerful. Chloe remembered that – could never forget it.

"You said 'I'm not fucking losing you again.' That's what you said. What do you mean?"

"Jefferson's dangerous." Without thinking, Chloe let her hand drift to Rachel's arm. She didn't pull away. "I don't want you to get hurt. I can't…I can't lose you."

Blood and adrenaline burned through her, just like when they'd run down the stairs at the old mill after fighting those skinheads, just like when they were Prospera and Ariel on stage, just like when they'd kissed beneath the streetlights, just like when she'd driven to the hospital to keep Rachel from dying. This was what Rachel did to her.

She saw the fire, and kept sticking her hand into the flame.

"Chloe…you're serious. Like, really serious."

She nodded, all her words dried up. Now Rachel was close, their knees touching, her hair falling down around her.

"Is there something you're not telling me?"

_You were the first person I really loved._

_I'll never get over your death, even if it didn't really happen._

_You gave me a reason to live._

_You're going to die. I think you're always going to die before you get to live._

_You deserve everything more than me._

"I…"

The heat of her. So close. Alive again.

The door banged open, and they both jumped back with a start. Victoria Chase walked in, absent-mindedly checking her phone. She looked up.

"Am I interrupting?"

Chloe looked over at the mirrors. Both her and Rachel's faces were bright red, their arms held tightly to their sides like statues.

Chloe eased herself past Victoria slowly. "Nope. Just finished, you know, going. To the bathroom. The ole' flushin'."

"God, you are _so_ weird."

With that, she made her escape.

* * *

After a long first day, Chloe found Max in her room, her back to her bed and her legs pulled up to her chest. She was breathing fast, her face looking down into her lap.

"Max!"

She pulled her close, murmuring into her ear, running her hands through her hair. "I'm here, I'm here…"

"I can't…I can't do it, Chloe. I can't go in there with…with him. I can't. I just can't."

_Jefferson sticking a needle into Max's neck._

_Jefferson burying Rachel._

"Hey, Max, look at me. Seriously man, look at me."

She caught Max's wrists, not unkindly, and slowly Max turned to face her. She'd never seen Max's face rolling through so many emotions at once, like crashing waves.

"We figured all this shit out once. We'll do it again. I want to live in this world with you. My dad's alive? Rachel's alive? We can go to school together? Max, I want to go to college with you, and smoke at night talking about philosophical shit, and see you first when I wake up, and have really fucking good sex, and watch you become an artist, and move somewhere cool and live out our days as tatted badass old ladies in some log cabin or something. We can fix this. We'll get him."

Max smiled, her eyes still rimmed with tears. "I want that too."

"Good. It, uh, would be awkward for me if you didn't, for one thing."

"But."

"But?"

"Chloe, I don't know if I can…if this world will be good enough…if he's still alive."

_God, Max. You went through hell. Fuck this piece of shit Jefferson._

Chloe swallowed, then nodded, the hand that wasn't holding Max clenching into a fist.  
"Alright."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Fuck him. He doesn't get to live to do this to anyone else. This time Rachel's going to live."

Max nestled up to her, her body quivering. After a few moments, she turned, looking out the window at the evening autumn of Blackwell Academy. Chloe followed her gaze.

"What would this place be like without him?"

"Home."

* * *

They were both broken in ways that would never really heal. But they were both strong. They'd suffered already, even if the rest of this world would – and could – never know. Max steeled herself to face the object of her nightmares every weekday, walking into his class, pretending to learn the lessons she'd already learned, all while reliving the memories of Jefferson shooting Chloe, Jefferson sticking a needle in her neck, Jefferson leering over her while bound to the chair, Jefferson bleeding on the floor, a sobbing David Madsen slumped by him.

It was enough to drive anyone to dark places. It weighed on Max, fractured her. They'd be talking, and Max's eyes would drift away, called towards some fear or revenge fantasy. Then she'd flicker back, like a stuttering tape, and shake her head. She snuck out of her dorm most nights to sleep in Chloe's bed, and only with Chloe's arms around her did she sleep well. But during the day, away from the devil himself, she found something like peace, or at least seemed too.

They studied together, their backs to each other sprawled out on Chloe's bed. Eventually, the books and papers fell to the floor, along with their clothes, and Chloe would play her music loud to drown out the rest of the noises they made.

Max even made friends, both the ones she'd started to make in her earlier year here, and new ones. She joined Chloe's ongoing D&D campaign with Steph, playing a sneaky Halfling rogue named Mercy. While not as close as they were before, Warren and Max still liked watching movies. And sometimes she even gained the courage and will to go out without Chloe, to wander through the town with her car, taking pictures of all the beautifully mundane pieces that made up Arcadia Bay.

Chloe found herself immersed in school more than she'd ever thought possible. She remembered things the old Chloe had never learned. It was almost like a power of her own, some part of her mind that just shifted into place in a way she couldn't describe. Chemistry made sense to her. Each part of the world broken down into smaller parts, each part reacting to another part. Sometimes explosively, sometimes in support. Two individuals, blending to become something new.

She still smoked, just this time it was with Max or Rachel, back in the junkyard.

Rachel Amber.

It was so strange to watch the path she walked down, now in this new weird world. Chloe had realized that Rachel held a darkness inside her too, but just like with her own alternate self, the lack of the defining tragedy of her parents' lying to her had kept that darkness buried in this timeline. She still could be manipulative, still wanted to leave town, still had a sense of melancholy that seemed more than just usual teenage sadness. But there wasn't the anger that she'd shared with Chloe. She didn't seem like she'd be the type to get with Frank. Or Jefferson.

While they'd never addressed the incident in the bathroom directly again, she didn't see Rachel talking to Jefferson alone much anymore. The intense guilt Chloe had felt later about that moment wormed its way into her, and so she tried to spend less time with Rachel than she might otherwise want to. She deserved her own new life.

* * *

The weeks passed, and soon Chloe could see December approaching on the horizon. Just a week or so until Stanford released its first round of acceptance letters. Chloe caught herself imagining what life in college would be like – the house shows with shitty beer and great music, the thrill of understanding something more about the world, the new people, the freedom that she felt like she'd deserved after so many years living at home. Max was there, in these fantasies, but not always. Sometimes Rachel was there too. Or instead of Max.

_Everyone fantasizes. It doesn't mean anything._

She was dreading the conversation with Max. It was a cliché of the high school sweethearts breaking up early in their new college lives, and it surely didn't fucking apply to time-traveling, multiple-self-combining agents of death, but it weighed on her all the same. She could feel Max thinking the same thing, like the anxiety was something physical radiating out of her.

And through all of this, her promise.

They wouldn't let Mark Jefferson get away with it. Not again, not in their nearly-perfect new world.

"Dad, can I ask you something?"

"Well that sounds ominous."

Chloe laughed. They were sitting at the dinner table one Sunday morning when Chloe'd gone back home to do laundry, the sky outside dark and cold, not snowing but threatening it. Joyce was working at the diner, but William and Chloe were still in pajamas, a fire burning in the fireplace.

"Just a hypothetical question. I'm feeling hella philosophical today."

William took a long sip of steaming coffee from his "I Heart Paris" mug. "Professor Price, at your service. Take me on a journey of the mind."

Chloe speared a piece of waffle. "Let's say that you could travel through time. Back in time, to be specific."  
William raised his eyebrows. "Ah, one of these. Do I have a time machine? A rift in time and space?"

"Let's say…superpowers."

"Okay, Professor Price has superpowers. I can journey to the past with my mind. Now what?"

"Let's say you use your powers for good, and fix something wrong in your life. Then you go back and re-live a new timeline, but now your life is so much fu…so much better."

"I'd say I've used my powers pretty well."

"Yeah. But let's say in the…in the 'original' timeline, there was a really shit person. And you defeated him. Your supervillain. But in the new timeline he's still around. He hasn't done the really super evil stuff yet, but he's still…he's still the same person."

William looked at her, something unreadable passing over his face. "This is a weird line of questioning, Chloe. Writing a story or something?"

"No, not really. Just…wondering about fate, I guess. Or about morality, maybe? Or maybe, I don't know, something weirder than that."

"Sounds like you're ready for college. I used to have conversations like this all the time there. Usually after midnight and with some…other stimulants, but…"

"Dad!"

"What? I was a cool guy once, hard as it may be to believe."

Chloe raised an eyebrow, but couldn't keep a straight face, and the two burst out laughing.

"Okay, okay, that may be stretching it. But, back to your question."

"Back to my question."

William leaned back in his chair and took another long sip of coffee. The steam dissolved around his hands. "You're asking if I should do something to my supervillain – lock him up, or destroy him – because I know that he'll do something evil soon?"

"Yeah. Or maybe…because he did something evil in your original timeline. Because he's the one thorn in your perfect new world."

"Well that's your mistake. You could pluck him out of it, and it won't be your perfect world."

"I mean, not _perfect_ , but…"

"Not trying to argue semantics or anything. I just think that – in this scenario – I'm more afraid of the villain than I need to be. If this is a different world, maybe whatever circumstances drove him to evil are different."

"What if he's just evil? A real rotten one, down to his bones."

William shrugged. "I don't think anyone's totally evil."

"I do."

A clock slowly ticked in the silence.

William sighed. "This seems personal. I'm trying to give fatherly advice, disguised in a metaphor, but to be honest, I have no idea what situation this is supposed to be about."

Chloe grinned. "Just my own imagination. And a bit too much coffee-related insomnia."

"Well that one I can help with. No drinking coffee after dinner."

"Thanks, Dad."

"Glad I could help. Wait, did I help?"

Chloe shrugged. "Just talking with you helps."

He reached over and laid a warm hand on her shoulder.

_I love you, Dad, but you can't help with this one. No one's ever been in this situation before, so advice isn't really useful here. That fuckface Jefferson is evil, I know it. A psychopath. Not his fault, maybe, we're all shaped by the chemicals in our brains, but he's still a monster. Maybe if we changed something earlier in his life, he could've ended up alright, but we didn't change enough to stop him from being the person he is. I can't lose Rachel, or Max, or this better world with my Dad and Mom in it._

_One last villain to defeat, and this will finally be over._

_I can go to college, marry Max, and live happily ever fucking after._

* * *

"Chloe?"

"Yeah, Max?"

She shifted over in bed, her head resting under Chloe's chin. "I'm not going to get into Stanford."

Chloe felt the guilt in her stomach. She knew she was right. Max was smart, but not in ways often reflected in grades.

"You don't know that."

"I do. But I don't…I don't want you to sacrifice your dreams for me."

"Max…you _are_ my dream. We've sacrificed a hella lot more than school for each other."

"I know. But that's why. Ever since we've gotten to this timeline…actually, ever since the tornado and everything that week…you've been the only thing that mattered to me. You still are."

Chloe hugged Max closer, but said nothing.

"I've seen everything about reality change. But you're always there. You're different sometimes. You're less angry now."

"Still hot?"

"Still hot. But I've seen a lot of different Chloe Price's…but all of them have been worth knowing. You're my constant."

She didn't know what to say to that. It felt so fucking good, but she never knew how to make the romantic words that felt right in the moment. So all she could say was "Max…"

"But you're going to get into Stanford, and you're going to move away. And I'll come visit you as much as I can, but I'm…I'm going to have to live a life without you constantly there. And that scares me, Chloe."

"It scares me too. I wish you could come with me. I wish even this perfect world was more perfect. But we'll handle it. We're Max Caulfield and Chloe Price, time-warriors. We've done so much insane shit. We can do a long-distance relationship. And you might even get into a school somewhere in SoCal, and we could be even closer. We can do this. And then…whatever the fuck is next. I'm excited for that."

She felt Max nod against her.

But she was still scared. Chloe knew her well enough to feel that. Even after everything…

"Chloe."

"I know. Him."

"You said we'd try to…try to do something about him."

Chloe let out a shallow breath.

"I know. We will."

"When?"

"Soon."

* * *

Soon was easy to say, hard to do.

They hadn't used their powers ever since entering the new timeline, and while they knew where the Prescotts' bunker had been in their timeline, it was much harder breaking in without powers. And so the question constantly flared in Chloe's head:

_Should we kill him?_

Killing was wrong, right? The new Chloe blanched at the idea of murder. The old Chloe would happily make an exception. The two minds warred in her head.

_You're not actually thinking about murdering a person, right?_

_Jefferson's not a person._

_De-humanizing people is actually what Jefferson does. Exactly what sociopaths do._

_There's some actual right and wrong in the world. Jefferson's shit is wrong. He killed Rachel and Max and me!_

_Not in this timeline. Maybe there was some butterfly effect change and he's found a way to control himself._

_I can't take that risk._

_What if you're caught? This isn't a movie. Most of the time murderers get caught._

_Actually, most of the time they don't. And no one would suspect two teenage girls. We're usually the ones being killed by adult men, not the other way around._

_This is such a good life! Don't fuck it up by going to jail. Think about what Mom and Dad would think?_

_They won't know. And if they could know everything…they'd understand._

_They would never approve._

_Understanding isn't the same as approving._

_Sounds like you've made up your mind._

_Our mind. And yeah._

_I don't believe you._

Chloe still argued with herself even after she'd hashed out the plan with Max. Even after they'd waited until the last day of school before winter break. Even after they'd snuck in and trashed Jefferson's room to keep him there late. Even after Chloe approached him in the snowy, empty parking lot in the darkness of night, a knife, sheathed in her pocket, Max waiting in case things went south.

Jefferson, his pea-coat pulled tightly around him, clicked the button on his keys and unlocked his car. He was sighing to himself, tired and probably furious.

_Last change to turn back._

_Fuck you._

Chloe was about to step out when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She whirled around to see Rachel Amber in a dark coat, a snug beanie around her hair.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

"What are _you_ doing?" Chloe whispered back.

"Following you! You're not going to do something stupid, are you?"

"I'm…just trust me on this."

Rachel looked at her, her eyes wide and confused. "I can't." She stepped out from behind the shadows.

"Well, fuck," whispered Chloe. She followed Rachel into the parking lot.

At their approach, Jefferson turned, jolting a little. Quickly his face faded back into his approximation of a smile.

"Rachel Amber and Chloe Price. What are you two doing out so late? Not up to anything, I hope?"

"Oh you know, just out for a nighttime stroll. You won't bust us, will you?"

"Ha. Maybe I should, but I've had a bizarrely difficult day, and it's the holidays, right? You should be getting home."

Chloe stepped between them. Her heart pounded like gunfire.

"I know about you, Mark."

"I'm sorry?"

Chloe felt the reassuring heft of the knife her pocket. She could do it if she had to. Back when some other version of her had faced off against Damon Merrick, she'd panicked. But to her, that was four years ago. She'd lived through much more now. She'd felt rage and hate and love, and knew what a person could do when propelled by all three.

"I know about you. You're a sociopath. You get off on drugging girls in your dark room. You take pictures of them, capture when they lose their sense of innocence about this shitty world, and then you'll send them back, fucked up for the rest of their lives. Unless you decide to kill them. Unless you fuck up. You don't care either way."

"Chloe…this isn't right…" Rachel said, slowly walking towards her.

"Get away from him! Please!"

Rachel stood between the two, backing up.

_She can't be here. She can't be here to see this._

"Chloe, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Clearly, you've got me mistaken for someone else."

Chloe pulled out the knife and gripped it tight. "Don't fucking lie to me! I won't let you take Rachel again!"

"Chloe, I'm okay," said Rachel, her voice high. She was shaking.

Jefferson put up his hands. "Ms. Price, let's calm down and think about this. You're scaring your friend. Rachel's fine, she's right here. I haven't done anything to her, and I'm not going to do anything to her. You're clearly upset."

"Rachel, I know it doesn't make any sense, but you have to trust me! He's a monster! He's a fucking monster!"

"Rachel, something's wrong with Chloe! We can talk her down and go get her the help she needs."

Rachel looked between the two, stepping back slowly. She was shaking.

A roar and a bright flash, like the eyes of a dragon. Two beams of light cut through the darkness, and Max's car sped through the parking garage. Chloe took a step back. Jefferson turned, the lights glinting in his glasses, a look of confusion with just a hint of fear contorting his face. The car kept coming. Too late, she saw that he knew.

It was a portfolio of pictures, one after the other, each one capturing a moment but not the stitches in between. A true event, captured and dissected into droplets of meaning.

_The car surging ahead._

_Jefferson turning towards it._

_The car closer._

_Rachel, frozen in fear._

_Jefferson turning to leap aside._

_The car connecting._

A sickening thud and a squelch.

Sparks sputtered from the car as Max put it in park and stepped out, her legs shaking.

"Shit!" said Chloe and Rachel at the same time.

After a deep breath, Max steadied herself and walked towards the body. Chloe could only see her back as she crouched down over the still figure, smeared with red. A pair of broken glasses lay on the asphalt a few feet away.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god," whispered Rachel.

"M-max?"

"He's dead. Finally dead."

Chloe took a few hesitating steps closer. She thought she'd want to gloat over the man's death, but she just felt sick. She stared at Max instead. The other girl's face was a blank mask of calm.

"Shit, Max, we've gotta get out of here! Like, now!" Panicking, Chloe ran to Max's car. The front was smeared with blood – not an inordinate amount, but still noticeable if you were looking closely at all. Rachel was on her knees, dumbfounded. Chloe clutched at the ends of her hair. "Fuck!"

"We should take him with us. And his car."

"Fuck, Max! Can you…can you rewind this? We can plan it better, maybe. This is…this is too obvious…I can't…I can't have any of us go to fucking jail after everything!"

"Chloe, I…"

"No! This is fucking sick! What are we now? Max, I…I love you but…I can't keep doing this! I can't keep making new timelines and killing people! This means something! This…this has to STOP!"

She clenched her fists tighter, reveling in the pain of her fingernails biting against her skin. She couldn't hear anything over the revolving voice in her head, screaming inarticulately. Her head hurt, and she tasted blood in her mouth.

"Chloe?"

"We can do it again! This was…this was a mistake. I'm so fucking stupid!"

"Chloe, it's not…"

"We can plan it, right? Have everything ready, maybe use…maybe use his own shit against him? I don't…we're murderers…we're fucking murderers…before we didn't really know, it wasn't really us, and now, and now…"

"Chloe!"

She looked up at Max, tears in both their eyes. Max spread her arms wide, gesturing. "Look!"

Everything was still. No, that wasn't right. Nothing was moving, but the air around them shifted slightly, like the blurring screen of a paused old television. Red and blue and white swam at the edges. Her hand burned hot. And glowed.

"Wait…what's this?"

"This is what happened when I saved Kate! Time…time froze."

"Froze?"

"What's…what the fuck is happening?"

_Wait…is that…_

Chloe and Max both turned to see Rachel Amber, standing on shaking legs, blue light swimming around her like a whirlpool.


	15. This is No Mortal Business

_She remembers a tree, burning._

_Arms reaching towards an impassive night sky, branches alight with fire, stirring in a sudden gale. Tears in her eyes, a cry of primal hate and sorrow and rage and love burning through her throat, burning like this tree, like this forest._

_A girl she barely knows beside her, flinching and in awe. The two of them, like two bolts of lightning, caught in a dance._

_The flame. The water on her face. The forest around them. The wind rushing through them. Arcadia Bay, alive, and roiling._

_She remembers another name._ Prospera. _A sorcerer, trapped on an island. Betrayed by her family, desperate to escape, possessed of powers of weather and illusion. A gnarled tree, and a spirit caught inside, fighting against the coils of bark. With a word, and a look, and a request, the spirit was freed, hers to command. Blue hair and raven feather._

_She remembers a plea in front of the entire crowd. A desperate wish for certainty. She made a promise, then. She meant it, then. The girl who said those words wanted that dream._

_But she remembers being other people. A series of masks rotating around nothing, only other masks beneath. She remembers a night sky of false stars, in tears because she knew they were just like her. Lies. She loves her spirit, loves her parents, loves her friends. But they know only a fragment of her. How could they ever know all of her when even she doesn't understand herself?_

_Days, weeks, months, years with her spirit, her Ariel. Together, they are friends, and lovers, and sometimes something in-between. She has other friends, and other lovers, and other lives, but none feels true in the way she wants. Everything is a role. A performance._

_Arcadia Bay. The Island. Something so small. A cage. And she, a phoenix, struggling, wings outstretched, burning it along with her._

* * *

_She remembers the storm, raging._

_Fear clenching her heart like some goblin, long claws piercing and drawing blood, large teeth glistening. The wipers on the car thudding. Too slow. Too weak. The wind screaming. Signs and wood and stone and metal flung aside like toys._

_The girl she loves – yes, that is the word, she knows it now, in all its forms – is dead. Shot to death by the Devil. Now the Devil is dead too, lying in a puddle of his own blood, down in his petty kingdom in Hell. But the girl she loves can be saved. She must descend into the Underworld again, risk the Devil being freed, all to reclaim her love. It will require her own sacrifice, her own journey back to reclaim that spirit, once trapped in a tree._

_One picture in the diner._

_She remembers a dared kiss in the hazy morning light. She remembers a swim in the shadows, heart pounding, something she had never let herself feel before making itself known. She remembers how her eyes were like cameras. Pictures forever. She couldn't forget this._

_She remembers a hundred other possibilities. The girl she loved dead in a bathroom. Dead on the train tracks. Dead in the junkyard. Dead. Dead. Dead._

_And alive. A drop-out. At school, alone. At school, with her. An endless road trip, outrunning the leviathan beneath them. Outrunning all their other selves. The desperate need to hold onto her, the one anchor in this entire sea. A love, finally confessed. A beautiful new world, forever there's._

_She remembers going back. Again. And again. And again._

_She will never stop going back._

* * *

_She remembers two lives._

_Which one is real?_

_A happy family, a rebellious love, the half-remembered fragments of something that came before. A good student, with friends, and a future. Sorrow only something glimpsed in the dark morning when sleep couldn't come._

_A broken life, a different rebellious love, an adventure and the love's loss. A drop-out, drugs, tears, flyers posted everywhere. And a different love returned. Soft and fragile, with something harder, stronger, growing underneath._

_She loved them both. Both lives, both loves. Only one held her in both worlds. Only one kept her sane and fighting._

_But both were here. Now. In this frozen space._

* * *

"What's…what the fuck is happening?"

The blue light swarmed around Rachel, even as everything around them in the dark, frozen parking lot of Blackwell Academy stood still like a painting. The hulking presence of Max's car a few feet away. Jefferson's body, contorted and crumpled in the shadows.

_She's with us?_

Chloe reached for Max, trying to find something to hold onto. Jefferson was dead, and Rachel had someone gotten caught in Max's time freeze. This wasn't what they'd planned. Chloe wasn't sure what they'd planned, anymore. Too many memories competing in her head.

A few feet away, Max was kneeling on the pavement, her hands pushed against her ears. She gulped down air like she was drowning, then slowly pushed herself to her feet, wiping a smear of blood from her nose. Chloe took a step closer, but heard Rachel whimpering behind her.

The light had faded somewhat, but Rachel still moved, shuddering.

"Rachel, I can explain…"

Rachel stared at her, panic in her eyes.

"C-Chloe?"

"Rachel, I…I…"

_How am I even supposed to begin to explain this?_

"I know this is…pretty fucking weird, and it's gonna sound insane, but you're living in it, so…Max has time powers."

Rachel made a noise somewhere between a sob and a scream. She crawled backwards, away from Max and Chloe. Her breathing came too quickly, all inhales, each one faster than the other.

_She took that well._

"Rachel? Rachel, I think you're having a panic attack. Breathe slowly. Come on, we're here, I'm here…"

Chloe rushed towards her, putting an arm around her shaking body. Rachel didn't seem to notice. She took her hand, squeezing tight.

_Guess I'm always saving Rachel, no matter what timeline I'm in._

"Max? A little help?"

Max blinked, her eyes refocusing.

"Max!"

In a second she'd crouched down beside Chloe and Rachel. Blood still trickled from her nose, and the wavering light around them all made it look like there were multiple Max's refracted over each other. The current Max and the one she'd remembered.

_And Max's always been saving me. Is that how this works? Just repeat the same roles over and over again, even with new scripts? Was Rachel supposed to be in this, whatever this is, from the beginning?_

"Chloe."

"Rachel, it's okay, we're here, we're your friends, this is going to be okay…"

"Chloe!"

"Breathe slowly. Yeah, good, fuck yeah, that's good, just breathe. In. Out."

"Chloe!"

It was Max. She'd forgotten about Max. Nothing felt right in her head. She'd been saving Rachel, taking her to the hospital. She'd been stabbed by Damon Merrick, right? Where had Max been? Running away from home to meet her?

She tasted copper in her mouth. No, blood. She was bleeding too, just like Max. God, her head hurt.

_Max. Max killed Jefferson. Time is frozen. That's what's happening._

"I'm holding this," Max said, her voice shaking. "But I can't do it much longer. We have to…" she looked over at the shadow a few feet away, and the puddle of blood frozen in place. "We have to get rid of him. Destroy the evidence."

Max killed Jefferson. His body was lying there, and if they didn't do something, they'd be going to jail. So much for their second chance, their close-to-perfect world.

"Where? How?"

She thought of how criminals in TV and movies always got rid of bodies. Throw it in the ocean? It'd come bobbing up, or get caught in some fishing net. Burn it? That'd be too obvious, and it wouldn't it smell? Bury it…

Max's thoughts traveled down the same path. "Chloe, I know it's fucked up, but we know where…where bodies won't be found."

"No."

"We don't have much of a choice."

"Absolutely fucking not."

"Chloe! Please! This is it, the last thing! With him gone, I can…I can go to school here, I can live my life. Rachel's alive, your family's alive, Jefferson's dead…it's the world we dreamed about! We can live a boring normal life from now on! This is the last piece. We just have to do this. I love this town, but if there's anywhere that's filled with bad memories it's the junkyard. Let's end this."

_The smell rising up from the ground. Digging desperately, already knowing what was there._

A memory she wasn't supposed to have.

"Max…"

Max's hand drifted up to Chloe's neck, then slid across her cheek. She smiled.

"It's pretty poetic justice of us, right?"

Chloe felt Max and Rachel, both against her. Both terrified, both caught up in something none of the three of them understood, could ever understand. If this is what had to happen to keep them alive, to keep this life going, she'd do it. She'd do anything.

"Okay. Okay. So who's taking his car?"

* * *

Chloe gripped the steering wheel tightly, feeling the sweat of her palms coat the plastic. Rachel Amber sat in the seat beside her, staring anxiously out her window into the night of Arcadia Bay. Jefferson's car was ahead of them, illuminated in the headlights, Max's head silhouetted against the windshield.

_This is not how I thought this would go._

They were headed to the junkyard, to bury Mark Jefferson's body just like he'd buried hers and Rachel's. Max in the Devil's own car, Chloe driving Max's. _Driving._ The same way her father had died. The same way she'd become paralyzed. All in other timelines, sure, but she had never stopped wondering about destiny. Were car deaths as tied up in her fate as storms and Max and Rachel? She hadn't driven much, not in the conscious mind that belonged to the "original" Chloe, not since she and Max had made their ill-fated drive out of the ruins of Arcadia Bay. But dying in a car crash didn't even rank next to the other fear. In between her and Max was the trunk of Jefferson's car, where the man himself lay, thrown in only with the strength of all three of them, right before Max's power had faded, and time returned to normal.

_If normal means anything._

"Did I…did I die?"

Rachel hadn't spoken much since the parking lot; only a few nods to show she understood.

_Yes, you died. I found your body. You died and left me._

"No. Max can…shit, how do I explain this? Max has this power. She can…do things with time. Rewind it, jump around in it, and I guess, stop it too. It's her power. Don't ask me how you got stuck in it. I don't know how any of this works, and it just keeps getting weirder."

Rachel put a hand to her head. "No...Max just ran over Jefferson…but also…I was with Nathan? I remember being with Nathan, and we were doing a shoot, but then…everything's hazy…"

_Fuck._

She felt the trees on either side of the road cave in, like she was in a collapsing tunnel. It was just a trick of the darkness, but she shivered.

 _That's not possible, even with time powers. The other Rachel –_ my _Rachel – died._

"What do you mean?"

She didn't want to be having this conversation now, not while she needed to focus on the car and the road ahead. She was relying on the driving skills of half her mind, hoping that the Chloe who fixed up an old junker and drove in a panic to save Rachel's mother and Max would be the one driving this car.

Chloe tensed as bright lights appeared on the other side of the road, like twin flames rising up from underground. They grew closer and closer, and she thought she could hear police sirens.

_What if it's the cops? Would Max run over them too?_

She didn't breathe.

The car passed silently. No cops. Only Max in the car ahead, and Rachel Amber beside her, staring at her.

"Chloe? We…you weren't in the Tempest with me, were you?"

The light ahead turned red, and Chloe eased the car to a stop behind Max. She swallowed, not looking at Rachel.

"It's complicated."

"Complicated? I'm not an idiot, Chloe…I remember things that…things that didn't happen. And that time in the bathroom? You warned me about Jefferson, and now this?"

"Rachel…"

"What happened to me? To us?"

"It's insane. You wouldn't believe me."

"I watched you pull a knife on Jefferson, and then I watched Max _kill_ him." She pressed a hand to her forehead. "If I didn't think something fucked up and…weird…was happening, I would've, like, called the cops or something."

"Oh."

"So tell me the truth. Please."

_You always wanted the truth, even when it hurt. Me too. Just another thing we had in common. I remember telling you about your father. That sound you made._

"Okay." Chloe took a deep breath as the light turned green. "It's a long, fucked-up story, but I'll have to give you the short version. I'm not in storyteller mode right now, with the whole…dead body situation. I'll tell you everything, I fucking swear, but we have to deal with this first, okay? Do you trust me?"

Rachel sighed. "Yes. Honestly, I don't know why, but yes."

"Right. Shit, this is confusing. So, you saw Max stop time, right?"

"If that's what that was."

"That's what it was. But she can do more than that. Rewind time, mostly. But also…some other weird shit? It's like…whenever she changes something, time splits off into parallel timelines."

"Changes something?"

"Oh yeah. So she can usually rewind time just a bit, like a few minutes or whatever. Fixes little problems or stuff that comes out of nowhere. But when she really concentrates – and for some reason she has to look at pictures of herself – she can, like, put her mind into her past self? And still remember her current self? And she can make changes, do different things, and that makes multiple timelines. They're all happening. We're just…just in one of many."

Chloe risked a glance at Rachel. Her eyes were narrowed, but it didn't seem like anger or disbelief. She was thinking. It was so strange, seeing her. It never stopped being strange. She was just a kid. They all were, but this one hadn't been through what the other Rachel had. They were all just kids in over their heads.

"So I was with Nathan in another timeline? And I'm remembering it?"

"Yeah. Don't fucking ask me why you're remembering them, but I think you are. Max and I…we went through a lot. More her than me, really, but…we made this timeline. Things went differently for us, a…a lot differently. This timeline has been a helluva lot better, really. It's so incredibly better."

"Except for Jefferson."

"Right. Jefferson…he was a real piece of shit. In our timeline, he…it was basically because of him that you…"

She could hear Rachel's sharp intake of breath. "Died?"

_You don't have to tell her._

_I have to._

_That could break a person._

_I promised._

_Some truths are too hard to hear. Lies are kinder._

_I know. I'm not a kind person, though._

"Yeah. You died."

"Oh."

Max turned down the road to the junkyard, and Chloe followed, the car rocking back and forth as the road turned to dirt. She'd made this drive so many times.

"How?"

"Rachel, no, don't…"

"You told me you'd tell the truth!"

Chloe spoke softly, her voice barely a whisper. "He drugged girls, took them to this bunker. A studio. Took pictures of them completely out of their heads. Ropes and tape and stuff. Nathan got caught up in it. Jefferson was like a father figure or something to him. Fucker."

When Rachel didn't respond, Chloe kept going, moving slowly to a better parking spot, hidden behind the mounds of trash.

"You were…I guess, posing for Jefferson's pictures. You wanted to get out of Arcadia Bay, be a model in Cali, and I guess you thought he was your ticket out. You didn't tell me, but Max and I found it out. Nathan wanted to be like his new fake dad, and drugged you to take his own pictures, but…the little shit got the dosage wrong. Or…maybe Jefferson killed you when you refused something and just blamed Nathan, I-I don't know. But he also captured Max and he…he killed…he killed me too."

"Wait, what?"

"In another timeline. A different one…I know it's confusing. So the fucker is evil, and even if we made a better world, we can't enjoy it with him still here. I don't know if he's done all of this in this timeline, but I don't think we could've changed who he is when we made this one. He's still a monster. _Was_ still a monster."

Neither of them spoke as Max parked the car and walked out into the darkness. They followed, tugging their coats tighter and feeling their warm breath in the shadows. The sound of crickets and all the other restless bugs in the woods filled the junkyard. She could hear the train rattling far away, and remembered other, better days here. And worse. She wondered which category this night would fall into, years from now. If they made it that far.

* * *

They set to work in quiet. Chloe pulled out the two shovels from their clubhouse, left there for when they'd needed to dump dirt on the remains of their campfires. Max flicked on a flashlight from her own car and put it between the three of them, in an empty space close to where Rachel was once buried. Chloe tried to ignore the feeling in her stomach when Rachel stepped on that particular spot in the earth.

Their faces were hard to see in the darkness, but Chloe knew what they'd look like. Max, flush with fear and regret and joy. Rachel, confused, angry, and not sure why.

Max reached for one of the shovels. "Keep watch, I'll do this."

Chloe stepped in front of her. "No. Rachel's too freaked out to see anything, and I'm stronger."

Max opened her mouth to reply, but Chloe put a finger to her own lips. "Quiet," she whispered. "Keep watch. I'm gonna bury this son of a bitch."

Max obeyed, staying hidden in the darkness underneath a pile of old garbage, keeping watch as Chloe and Rachel dug the grave for Mark Jefferson. It felt surreal. Ever since Max killed him, since time shifted, she'd found herself drifting into fragments of memories she wasn't sure she had. Or that even were hers. Somehow she saw an image of herself, shot in the head, leaning over this hill. But she hadn't lived that. Another Chloe did that, died right there, probably completely oblivious to her own death. The last thought in her head nothing but grief at losing Rachel.

And now Rachel was beside her, digging what could have been her own grave.

_Time travel is fucking insane._

It was hard work, and longer than any of them would have liked, but in just more than an hour, they'd dug something large enough and deep enough to shove his body inside. Together, they rolled his corpse, straining as quietly as they could, out of his trunk and into the hole. It fell with a thud. They all looked up quickly, like frightened rabbits, but when no one jumped out to arrest them, they turned back.

Max stood at the grave, staring down at the man's face, covered in blood and dirt. Chloe took her hand and squeezed it. Rachel glowered across from them, restlessly switching from one leg to another.

"He can't hurt us anymore," said Chloe. "Fucker's dead."

Rachel spat into the hole, then turned away, her back to the two of them.

"Rachel, you okay?"

"I remember enough, I think. Bits and pieces."

Max looked from Rachel to Chloe. Chloe leaned in closer. "Oh. Yeah. I think being stuck in the time freeze...thing…gave her our Rachel's memories? Some of them? I'm not in the right emotional place to unpack that yet, so let's deal with this first, okay?"

Max nodded, her eyes still on Rachel.

Rachel turned around, biting her lip. "But that…wasn't me, was it?"

Max spoke up, her voice barely a whisper. "They're all you. Every possibility, they're all a part of you." She looked up at Chloe, love and sadness both obvious on her face. "Even if they have different memories, there's still some part of you there. The part that loves the people you love."

Chloe pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head. Soon all this would be over, for better or worse.

Rachel stiffened, then grabbed her shovel and started covering the grave. With no more words to be said, Max took the other shovel and helped her. Chloe, tense and angry and relieved and every other possible emotion, stood in Max's watch spot, scanning for something. Waiting for the wail of police sirens. Could they fight off armed cops? Max could maybe rewind to help them escape, or freeze time again…but no, it was too risky. She looked up at the dark sky. Would the storm come again, now that Max's powers had activated? Or was it different here?

_Focus, Chloe. They're relying on you._

She thought she saw the shifting of a deer, or the flapping wings of a bird, but when she blinked the forest was back to normal. Empty. Trees swaying.

* * *

It was done. Mark Jefferson was dead and buried in the junkyard, where he would hopefully remain, hidden and forgotten. But there was one last piece before they could return home and try to adjust to the new world: what to do about his car? They could leave it here, but none of them thought that would last too long. It wasn't an obvious place to leave a body, but abandoning a car in a junkyard was just common sense. They could take it back to the Blackwell parking lot, but that would require sneaking back to the scene of the crime as dawn broke. It was dangerously risky. They suggested taking it to his house, but no one knew where he lived. And what about the ocean? They could let it sink into the waters, but it would get pulled out, easily. They could leave with it and drive off on another road trip, but Jefferson's disappearance would get tied up way too easily with one of their own. And then there was the option of setting it on fire, but all would be lost if someone stopped by to see what was causing the chaos.

Morning would come soon, and with it the first security guards at Blackwell. They'd see the bloodstains, and then when Jefferson didn't show up for work for days…

"We abandon it," whispered Rachel. "Just drive somewhere, and leave it, and get in Max's car and go. We can't leave it here, or take it back to Blackwell. We just have to leave it somewhere that'll throw the cops off."

Chloe wanted to object, but it was the best idea they'd had.

So they got back in their cars and left the junkyard, probably for the last time. The good memories would have to stay memories. It would be a worthwhile sacrifice to lose that place and gain a world without Jefferson.

They drove for another 45 minutes, as the bright light of dawn threatened to make an appearance. Max parked Jefferson's car at a bend in the road near a copse of trees. She wiped down everything with some cleaning supplies he'd kept in the glove box, then took the wheel of her own car. Rachel sat in the backseat, still dazed.

When dawn finally came, Chloe lay in Max's bed, watching the light climb up the wall opposite the window. The first morning on a world without Jefferson. Her parents were alive. The Caulfields were in Arcadia Bay. She was a student at Blackwell, with a bright future still somehow ahead of her. Max was with her. Rachel was alive. Jefferson was dead.

The perfect world. No more need to use powers. No more messing with time, merging memories, leaving cast-off selves in other realities. Just Chloe Price and Max Caulfield. And now, Rachel Amber.

It took two agonizingly long days for the disappearance of Mark Jefferson and the reappearance of his abandoned car to go public, and then a further few days before the police began investigating it as a true missing person's case. They blocked off the Blackwell parking lot with a barricade of yellow tape and searched Jefferson's office, but didn't find anything. Or at least anything revealing. During the investigation, Rachel refused to say anything about what had happened, throwing herself into schooling and pasting on a fake smile. Though, Chloe had to admit, it didn't seem much different than the usual Rachel Amber. For herself, Chloe felt like an astronaut, tossed into space in a small, cramped, rickety piece of junk, with nothing to do but hold on and hope she wasn't vaporized. There was no guilt here, strangely, nothing like the dead Arcadia Bay, somewhere else in time. Jefferson deserved to die, but she wasn't sure if it was fair to make Max do it. It had taken a long time for Max to reach the point of being able to live with the deaths of the other Arcadia Bay. She probably would never fully get over it, but she could think about other things, pursue other lives. Now, with another death on her hands?

But Max seemed fine. Better than fine, even. Every day she seemed to realize he was gone again, and the thought made the world breathable again, like coming out of a nightmare every day to the realization that it was only a story. Only the echo of a lie. She'd spent every night with Chloe, holding her, kissing her, ecstatic that they both were alive and together.

_It's kinda weird. But, I'm not complaining._

Five days after they buried Jefferson in the junkyard, Principal Wells made the formal announcement to the school that the police were "fearing the worst" and "pursuing all possible leads." Photography class was taught by a substitute named Mrs. Stone, who mostly played videos on the art of the image while rifling through notebooks. Students had already enacted a memorial of sorts of Jefferson, with lots of balloons and "come back soon" cards pasted up on one of the large displays on the lawn. Most of his students taped pictures they'd taken to the wall, many of them stealth shots of Jefferson himself. Chloe and Max avoided it, mouthing words of concern, but Rachel spent a lot of time around it, tears in her eyes.

* * *

"So you gonna tell me, or what?"

"For someone with time powers, you're really very impatient, you know?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Then, oh Max Caulfield the Patient Sage, you should have no problem with me taking my sweet ass time to make this important, life-changing revelation."

"Sweet ass is right."

"Wow, get a room, honestly."

"Do I get to see your sweet ass then?"

It felt good to laugh, that deep kind of laughter with a stupid fucking grin on her face, laying out on the blanket on a snowy beach, arms and legs wrapped tangled together and covered in warm sweaters and scarves. She felt warm here, safe, feeling the weight of Max's body against hers, their faces so close. Snow beach adventures had apparently been something that "New" Max and Chloe had done a lot, and it still felt right. She kissed Max, her hands sliding underneath her sweater and pressing her closer. She looked into her eyes, dark and brown.

Scared eyes. This close, she could tell. She didn't want to hear what Chloe was going to say, not really. Didn't want her to leave.

"I got in."

There. That flicker of sadness. Gone quick, but it was there.

Another hug, another flurry of kisses, like a puppy.

"That's awesome! Chloe Price, college student!"

"Been awhile since I thought that was an option."

"New Chloe's wanted to go to college, right?"

"Yeah, but whoever I am this moment still remembers being a high school dropout. I mean, I'm really even older, right?"

Max cuddled closer, her head rested under Chloe's chin. She stayed quiet, so Chloe kept thinking aloud.

"We basically traveled back in time two years, and then relived a whole year. Our brains are two years older than our bodies, and one year older than when we first jumped back. Shit, I'm twenty."

Max held her tighter, still not speaking.

"Max, I'm not leaving you. We'll be in different states, but…us, Max and Chloe, partners in time _and_ crime? That's not going anywhere."

She felt Max nod against her.

"I wish you could come with me, I really fucking wish it. Part of me just wants to skip school and go on that road trip, for real. But we'd need your power to really live like that and make it last, and we're not using that any more again, right? I've had enough of magical storms and shit."

Max stiffened against her.

_Fuck. She didn't…_

"Max."

In the silence that followed, Chloe could hear the waves crashing against the sand again, no longer background noise. Max's heart hammered against her. Laying on her back, all she could see was the slate gray sky like a blanket of snow.

"Max."

She knew the question she had to ask. And somehow, she knew the answer too.

"Have you been using your powers?"

"Yes."

"When? How many times?"

"I don't know."

Chloe untangled herself from Max and pushed herself up. Both on their feet now, the cold wind blowing around them.

"How can you not know?"

Max almost seemed to deflate. "I've lost count."  
 _No no no no no_

"Why? Why change it?"

"Little problems. Accidents. We messed up killing Jefferson a few times. Got caught by the police when it was you driving his car."

Max reached out a hand, but Chloe backed up. "Why not tell me? We don't lie to each other, that's the deal! I've never lied to you, not since the storm!"

"Chloe, I…I wanted to tell you, part of me did, but I don't always remember."

"What?"

Max let out a low breath, her hands clenched into fists. She breathed in, then out, slowly, methodically. Calming down for what was to come.

"There are a lot of other Max's, in other timelines. Timelines without you. And they keep finding me."

_I'm in our snowglobe. Being shaken around. That's why everything's spinning._

Max was still speaking. "Some use pictures, sometimes they find that weird in-between forest, I don't know! I keep changing, Chloe. I wake up and I remember all these parts of my life happening in a million different ways. All these different points where that Max broke off from another Max. Some are pretty similar to me but others…" There were tears in her eyes. Her throat caught. "But all of them missed you. You're the one thing that keeps me…all of me…together! You're my anchor."

"No…"

"Chloe, it's okay, I'm just…"

"No no no, that's not…you're not…"

_This doesn't make sense._

_Hate to say I told you so, but. You know._

_I don't understand._

_She probably doesn't have any room for anything other than you. Must get crowded in there._

"Are any of you my Max?"  
"Of course I'm your Max. I'm always your Max!"

"But…the one who ripped up the picture, chose me over Arcadia Bay, traveled through time to save me…that Max. The girl I love. Is she in there?"

Max looked at her like she had dementia, like she was fumbling around without the truth of reality.

"Yes, but it's not just…her. I remember all of that, I just remember all the different ways it could have – _did_ – turn out. I remember so much, Chloe, and I'm always remembering more. It's really scary, but…you're the one thing that matters."

Now could she could see it. All the signs. Max, always so desperately excited to see her, as if every day was a new reality. It was true. Those were all slightly different Max's, waiting their turn to spend a day with Chloe in the "perfect timeline." Re-writing each other's minds in the process.

"Chloe?"

"Don't rewind this, please. Don't fuck with my head."

"Chloe, I wouldn't…"

Max reached out a hand, desperation and real love in her eyes.

"Stop!"

The ocean crashed against the shore. A lone gull, not yet left for the winter, cried out above, cutting through the gray sky like a knife. The woman she loved was reaching out for her, hoping she'd understand, hoping that she could love all the different versions of her. Hoping that she could learn to live with a hundred minds, all connected by sorrow and a love for her. Hoping that she'd stay.

Chloe ran.

And time bent backwards.


	16. Interlude: Brimful of Sorrow and Dismay

ARCADIA BAY, beach. ARIEL, running to the woods. MAX, legion, reaching out. Both frozen.

[Enter PROSPERA, from the woods.]

PROSPERA: Cannot love be a draught both good and ill?

For Ariel is beloved by all

the many souls of her eternal love

Yet this poor spirit only aches for one

And casts aside the other eras' souls.

MAX: (to herself) No, I fucked up, we all fucked up…let's rewind this, she won't know, we won't tell her.

PROSPERA: I fear I may have erred that fateful day

I granted powers grand unto the world.

Truth be told, I cannot answer why

I gave my magic spells to mortal girls.

Perhaps I'd witnessed suff'ring far too much

To stand aside and watch another fall.

Yet why free this spirit from her pain

And not a thousand others more entrenched

In pain and hurt and wrenching pointless loss?

[Enter RAVEN, aloft to PROSPERA's shoulder.]

RAVEN: Caw.

PROSPERA: Yes, yes, I will concede to you for now.

Arcadia Bay made its wishes known

Through wood and beast and wind and storm and rain.

These three – for it is always three – deserved

A chance at something greater than their lot.

For time was birthed before us all, even

Myself, the Bay, and all the ancient ones

And only with our wills and precious gifts

Could humans hope to stem the rising tide.

RAVEN: Caw. Caw.

PROSPERA: Oh, you think our reader irritated

With such cryptic portends I choose to speak?

'Tis fair, your view, though I prefer my way.

RAVEN: Caw.

PROSPERA: Oh, fuck off.

RAVEN flies to tree.

CHLOE: (Animated now.) What the fuck? What the fuck? Max is breaking her mind for me? All of this? I'm not worth that much. _No one_ is worth that much. Goddamn it! Does nothing work out? We get this power, and all it does is fuck us over? What kind of bullshit god does this? Who does this?

PROSPERA: Poor Ariel. Freed from the wooden

arms of prison only to find yourself

ensnared in yet another trap again.

In time, all passions dull to dust and sand

and I have lived through times uncountable.

Your sorrow is so sweet to one bereft

of anything worth feeling sorrow for.

CHLOE: There's no right answer. There's nothing she could have done. She didn't ask for

powers. I didn't ask for this. She just tried to help. It would've been worse if she

didn't. How can this world be worse? It can't be. Maybe…maybe I should just

learn to live with this? It's still Max, right? I love her, so why is this so hard?

MAX: I can fix this…

[PROSPERA walks between them, arms outstretched. RAVEN flies closer, to the sand.]

PROSPERA: Time cannot bear the weight of Max's love

nor can it bear the grief of Ariel.

Time's oceans have already borne the pain

of Prospera, young mage and future god.

Three souls, three gifts, three worlds; and all for naught.

Soon this attempt must close and start again.

RAVEN: Caw.

PROSPERA: What?

RAVEN: Caw! Caw!

PROSPERA: Book three is nearly done! For Max has rent

time into disp'rate threads. It cannot be

the same again. Before all ends I must

roll up the scroll and end their sorrow now.

What use is my first failed attempts at joy?

You did enough to merge me with this god,

but I have yet to learn your reasons why.

Nothing can be gained from that tale! It trails

along in empty pain and suffering.

RAVEN: Caw!

PROSPERA: Reader, I beg you, stay awhile more.

My friend the Raven plays me like a drum.

A tale remains for you to hear, along

with Max and Ariel. For maybe if

all truth was known, some path might show itself.

 _Sit still, and hear_ _the last of our sea-sorrow_.

MAX: What, this isn't what…

CHLOE: Fuck, Max, don't…

MAX: I'm not doing this!

CHLOE: Max?

PROSPERA: The girl who danced with time for love;

The spirit lost in grief who loved her too.

Set sail through rivers endless, all to find

Some isle to call their final safe harbor.

This tale you know, this tale you've seen firsthand.

Prelude – the spirit freed, the mage revealed

The seeds of death and terror yet to come.

Yet even that had preface in my art.

For powers came first not to Max that day,

But years before, to one Rachel Amber.

[RAVEN alights on PROSPERA's shoulder. Cue lightning.]

End SCENE.


	17. A Fever of the Mad and Play'd

Chloe waited outside in the car. That was her job.

As a kid, she'd fantasized about winning prestigious scientific awards, working in a lab and unlocking the mysteries of the world through genius and just a bit of good luck. Or, if that didn't work out, she could always resort to piracy with Max. Once her father died, she didn't let herself picture the future much at all. The present was hard enough, and hopeless enough. She'd watched her grades drive careening off a cliff with something like a smile and a mad laugh, imagining the future scientist Chloe falling to her death along with them. The future stopped being a destination along a continuous road; now shadows covered everything but the few steps ahead, and the only thing that mattered was finding what good she could in those dark steps.

So, it stood to reason that young Chloe would not have predicted that at age twenty she'd be living in Los Angeles and making money by waiting outside in a car. Or that she'd be waiting for her girlfriend to come back holding a bag full of cash she'd stolen from the register. Or that she'd only have to wait a few seconds.

It was always the same. They'd park outside the store in the latest car they'd stolen and wait a few minutes until the amount of people drifted to an acceptable low. Rachel would pull the gun from the glove box – always a last resort, of course – give Chloe a kiss, step outside the car, slam the door shut, and be back a few seconds later. She'd open the door, kiss Chloe again, put back the gun, Chloe would begin to drive off, and Rachel would open the bag, newly full of ill-gotten gains. Chloe never saw Rachel enter the store, never saw her sweet innocent smile, never saw her pull out the gun and demand everything in the cash register, never saw her open the bag for the frightened clerk to dump the money into, never saw any of it.

When you're not the one rewinding time, it doesn't look like anything. You just had to take it on faith. Except for all the money. That, she understood.

So, Chloe waited outside in the car. A bird picked at something she hoped was a spilt milkshake. Somewhere loud music passed by in a car and drifted away. She blew out smoke into the parking lot. And Rachel opened the door. Four seconds this time. The ignition started, and they were off again, back into the sun-soaked concrete hellscape that was Los Angeles. Chloe turned on the local college radio station and let angry garage rock fill the car.

Rachel reached into the bag and began flipping through the bills, mouthing the numbers under her breath and occasionally pausing to do some calculations on her phone. She swallowed the money into the bag whenever they stopped at a stoplight. They weren't in the safest part of the city. After what felt like an hour, Chloe finally spoke up.

"So, I'm being murdered by the suspense."

"Mhm."

"The suspense is just stabbing me over and over again, and I'm metaphorically bleeding from the gut here."

"Mhm."

"Oh death, sweet release, I can see you right before my eyes! Oh, sweet embrace! My only regret is that I'll never know how much cash my girlfriend has for us! I'll never know!"

Beside her, Rachel finished counting the bills a third time. She tied the bag shut, leaned back against the seat, and closed her eyes, letting her long hair fall across her face.

"Four seventy-three."

"And I'm alive again. Revived by the power of money. That's not a bad haul, I guess."

"That's not even like a tenth of our rent."

"Yeah, but it helps. We have jobs, we'll be fine."

She didn't really have a job. She had occasional gigs. Do dishes at a restaurant, wave a sign on the corner, sell weed to rich high schoolers - none of them mattered, and she only dipped into them when they needed a little something extra.

"We need to do a bank again."

Chloe exhaled through her nose. She tried not to obviously tighten her grip on the steering wheel.

"I think we're good on that, right? I mean, you almost got shot last time."

Rachel raised a finger. " _Almost_ being the key word. I shouldn't have even said anything. I didn't get shot."

"And if one time you do?"

Rachel shrugged. "Memento mori, right? We could get shot any day. I'm good. I'll be careful. And if I get shot, you can rush me to a hospital. You've done it before."

Chloe's stomach tensed. A flicker of memories came to her, unbidden, like she'd stumbled upon some old grainy projector. Damon Merrick in the junkyard. A knife in Rachel. The difficulty breathing as she drove, frantic, willing Rachel to 'live, damnit' as she sped through traffic to Arcadia Bay's nearest hospital. The hours waiting in that room, waiting for yet another good and precious thing in her life to be wrenched away.

"Yeah."

The awful traffic let up slightly, and Chloe eased them along, the setting sun casting everything in shades of crimson and purple. Beside her, Rachel's smile melted away into a look of concern.

"Chloe, I'm sorry."

"No problem."

"No, it's a problem. I'll be careful! No bank, okay?" She put a reassuring hand on Chloe's leg, her warm smile reflected in the rear-view mirror. "You've had to deal with enough."

"Okay. Yeah. Okay."

Another few moments of silence. Outside someone honked their horn, which set of a cascade of other honks. It reminded her of dogs back at her mother's house. She'd open her window to smoke, and some dog would notice, and start freaking out. Back in those early years, after her adventurous first week with Rachel but before they'd come out to their parents, Rachel had spent the night over. They'd smoked in her bed, and the dogs made their greetings. Chloe'd complained good-naturedly about them, but Rachel had just said that was the closest dogs got to punk shows.

_That's your old life. Leave Arcadia Bay in the dust._

Something broke free in Chloe's chest and floated up, almost like it came from some other person.

"How long are we gonna keep doing this? Robbing places and shit? It's just...I'm never really there, I don't know what you're going through, and I can't...I can't really help you if something goes wrong."

"Chloe…"

"I know it's stupid, I know you'll be okay, but I just...I can't lose you. I'd fucking fall apart."

Rachel's hand tightened on her leg in a reassuring squeeze. "You won't lose me. I promise. Not until we're old as shit. And then, you'll find another crew of badass old ladies and you'll live another decade."

Chloe smiled.

"Deal."

"It's settled. No dangerous bank missions." Rachel took her hand off Chloe's leg and opened the glove compartment, rummaging around for a minute until she emerged with a black case. She rolled down the window, opened the case, and proceeded to light an expensive cigar.

"What the hell?"

Rachel grinned, then put the cigar in the corner of her mouth. She leaned back, crossing her arms like she was a gangster from the 20s.

"No bank heists, see," Rachel said, her voice distorted by trying to speak around the cigar, "but we've got more plans for time crime. Business is booming."

Chloe tried to hold in her laughter, but it came out anyway in a series of snorts. Eventually the dam broke, and they both laughed loudly, tears coming to their eyes. Outside, the smoke rose into the purple light of the LA evening, going to join the rest of the smog and exhaust, rising higher and higher into the sky.

* * *

_You are confused. We speak of time in metaphor because we can do nothing else, but time is not a river, or a series of threads. It is a story, with all the drafts overlaid, sentences cutting into one another and failing, trailing half fini_

_You get the idea._

_This was where I first interfered. Not this moment, per se, but this story. Why here? Why this draft? Already I could smell the ink from a raven's quill scratching the tale. Perhaps there was a story before even this, where no raven guided Prospera and Ariel together. I fool you - like a magician should - for I know that story too. But you don't need to hear it. It's not interesting._

_This one is. Perhaps too much so._

* * *

"Tell me something I don't know about you."

Chloe rested her head in Rachel's lap, her eyes closed, savoring this closeness, this feeling of everything being all-fucking-right with the world. They were home from work, living in their own decent apartment. She knew if she opened her eyes, she'd see the collage of furniture - Rachel's bought with hard-earned time-travel-theft money, Chloe's picked up secondhand from friends or dumpsters - and the seemingly endless pattern of show posters speckling the walls. Chloe's bong on the edge of the table. A pile of fashion magazines falling off the coffee-table. A pot with a few marooned pieces of pasta sticking to the metal bottom. Signs of a life. Of a home.

She felt Rachel's hands brushing her hair, tracing her jawline, stroking her cheek.

"Something you don't know? Why?"

"Just, I like getting to know you."

"We've been dating for 4 years, I think you pretty much know everything."

"I bet you know everything about me. But I also bet I don't know everything about you. Not with Rachel Amber, international woman of mystery."

"I'm not that mysterious."

Chloe let out a short, derisive laugh.

"What?"

"You're hella mysterious. That's, like, your whole thing."

Rachel paused to consider this before nodding. "Fair point. I do enjoy leaving my audience guessing."

"Ten points to Price. So, come on with the bean-spilling. Tell me something I don't know, Rachel Amber. If that _is_ your real name."

Rachel tensed. "You've caught me!" She slipped into her not-that-bad version of a French accent. "I have been in deep undercover for years! Rachel Amber is a fake American name to trick you stupid Americans! I am, in fact..."

"Oh, I'd love to see where this is going."

"Let me think!"

"Okay, okay. Don't interrupt the actress."

"Laura Palmer!"

"That's the best you got? No, a real one, c'mon. Intrigue me."

"Okay. Let's see. Okay. I...I…"

"Nothing?"

"No, I got something. Okay, I used to go online to those anonymous chat things, you know them right? And I'd pretend to be a guy to try to flirt with girls. And have cybersex or whatever. It's really embarrassing."

"You told me that already. Like, two years ago."

"What? No, I've never told anyone that!"

"We were drunk, but I remember!"

"Okay fine, you've exhausted my well of secrets. Now it's your turn."

_No way have I exhausted all of your secrets._

"Shit."

"Ha, you can't dish it out if you can't take it too! Alright, Chloe Price, reach deep into your closet full of skeletons. I'm waiting."

What didn't Rachel know about her? She'd already exposed those open wounds that came most easily to mind - her thoughts about her own father, her reluctance to tell Rachel the truth about her father, all the petty things she'd done, all the awkward fumbling experiences around sex, all the fucking bizarre little mental things with no real words that everyone did…

She'd told Rachel everything about her, sometimes drunk, sometimes high, sometimes sober. She'd told her things after sex, while they were driving, through mouths of food, yelled across the hall from the bathroom, in whispers during movies, in hoarse shouts only they could hear at shows, through texts, though tears, through laughs. Everything that made her the messy, strange, fucked-up weirdo she was.

_But not the things that would hurt Rachel._

"Maybe I have something. Promise you won't be mad?"

"Chloe, if you managed to sleep with the lead singer of Cloth Mother, you have my forgiveness and, honestly, my respect."

"Not that, but you said it now, can't take it back. But seriously." She finally opened her eyes and fell upwards into Rachel's.

"It's okay, Chloe. I asked. What do I not know?"

She tensed again.

_Why did I bring this up if I didn't want to tell her about it?_

_Why do I care about it?_

"Sometimes I...sometimes I...fantasize about other people."

Rachel paused, her eyes narrowed.

_Shit shit shit_

She was laughing.

"Chloe, that's your big secret? Duh, that's what humans do! Wow, sometimes I forget you're such a giant nerd!"

_She took that well._

_But you weren't specific._

"Actually, mostly just one other person. Uh...Max. You know, Max? It's her. I have a lot of dreams about her. And we're together. I dunno, it's weird. Obviously I'd never do anything, I haven't even talked to her in years, I just…"

Rachel kissed her lightly, stunning her into silence. This was not what she expected.

"What?"

"You're cute. It's okay. I'm not jealous of your childhood crush. I know what this is."

"You do? 'Cause I don't?"

"I do." She put out one finger. "Max was an important piece of your childhood, and so when you're feeling homesick for Arcadia Bay, your unconscious mind comes up with her." A second finger. "You've only been able to admit that you had a crush on her in the last few years, so she's a symbol of young love, crushes, all that exciting puberty shit. She'll always be a symbol of that for you." A third finger. "And finally, we all like what-ifs. Like, what would've happened if you'd stayed in Arcadia Bay? She would've come back, maybe you could have reconnected, started dating, had her take some scandalous pics, had an exciting time with your hipster girlfriend. It's very healthy and normal, stuff. Don't worry about it." She kissed her again.

"Wow. Guess I'm lucky that I'm dating my therapist."

"Now that _is_ something I frown on. Very ethically suspect."

"Of course."

"But still kinda hot."

"Please tell me you're kidding."

"What can I say? Power is exciting."

"Wow."

"It's not my fault I'm open to new experiences."

So it hadn't gone badly, telling Rachel about Max. The conversation drifted off towards other things, then changed into something with far fewer words, and Rachel didn't bring up Max again. Her explanation made since. It wasn't like Chloe'd had a lot of romantic experiences before Rachel. She'd tried dating some guys but it never really turned into anything worthwhile. Of course she'd wonder about other possibilities. She wasn't responsible for her unconscious dreams, right?

But it still made her feel guilty. In the dreams, it was her and Max on a road trip, not her and Rachel. Her and Max spending lazy mornings in bed, entangled in each other. Her and Max, kissing by the lighthouse in Arcadia Bay in the rain, like some melodramatic movie. No Rachel in sight. It felt like cheating. But she'd never cheat, and she felt confident Rachel wouldn't either. After all, she'd given plenty of opportunity for her to come clean if it ever happened.

_Don't be naive._

_Everybody lies._

Everybody but Rachel. Not to her, right?

_She wouldn't lie to me._

* * *

Chloe didn't remember the names of whichever of Rachel's friends lived in the apartment. Ashley, Kayla? Something like that. All she knew is they were models, all living out the same dream as Rachel. They got some good gigs, occasionally, and god knew they were doing better than a lot of people, but they didn't have Rachel's charm. Or time travel powers, for that matter.

Rachel would've been a good model without her powers, Chloe thought, popping the top off a bottle of fancy beer and scooping some obscure hourederves onto a plate. She'd probably be where these girls were at, or a bit better. But when she could learn as much about every opportunity, every potential employer, every potential gig - and then just rewind it and use the knowledge to her advantage? That helped a lot. She was going places. Her backstory - small town sweetheart with a crooked father, abducted by a damaged rich kid and his sociopathic photographer teacher, who escaped with her own wits (i.e. newly-discovered superpowers) and eventually ran away with her high school dropout girlfriend - helped a lot. Not just a pretty face, this one. She faced shit.

Chloe let Rachel lead the conversations, mostly chiming in to confirm whatever hilarious story Rachel was telling, or pretending to laugh along to inside jokes she didn't get. These weren't her people, no matter how much Rachel wanted them to be. Her people were at the house shows, the dive bars, the abandoned buildings at night. The problem was, Chloe's people were also Rachel's people. Rachel blended in with the punks and the hipsters and the outcasts - they couldn't help but love her too. Then why couldn't Chloe love Rachel's friends?

So she tried.

A few hours later - or at least, it seemed that long - Chloe sat in a plush chair, smoking a joint while the TV played a seemingly never-ending stream of America's Best Next Model, muted. Two glitter-clad people on the couch next to her were aggressively making out, while a pretty girl - probably another model - sprawled on a loveseat, her face illuminated by the light of her endlessly scrolling newsfeed. Rachel and her closest friends were in a circle on the other end of the room, gathered around a table.

She heard Rachel say something in that giddy voice she took on when she was high, and everyone burst into a shimmer of laughter. Chloe took another hit and leaned back against the seat. God, sometimes she fucking hated Rachel's friends.

_It's not her friends that piss you off. It's her. Seeing her change like that. Another group, another mask. Another Rachel Amber._

She couldn't hide that from herself. The Rachel Amber she loved, with her smirk and her pitch-black humor and her obsessive knowledge of classic movie musicals, the Rachel Amber who always woke up early to watch the sun, who never met a mountain she didn't scale, who purred when Chloe ran her fingers through her hair, who could erupt into righteous anger at the mere mention of an injustice…that Rachel Amber was swallowed up every time Chloe saw her interact with others. This Rachel Amber, the one doing lines of coke with other models, the one who laughed too much and drank expensive wine and gossiped, this was someone else.

But if she could change so much, so completely, so quickly, what did that make the Rachel she knew? Was she just another mask, one carefully constructed to win the heart of Chloe Price? And then, throw in time travel? Trusting was hard. Trust no one, that was her motto, and she always had to remind herself of that. Too often she forgot it, let herself love Rachel so completely it felt like worship. Times like this reminded her why that was a mistake.

Rachel swung down next to her, half sitting on her lap, half on the arm of the chair. She kissed Chloe's cheek, laughing, and Chloe let herself give into the pull of Rachel's gravity. She tugged her closer, and Rachel's kissed leapt down to her neck.

The rowdy cheers from her friends didn't drown out her low whispered voice. "You're so fucking hot."

She felt the red flood her face. But she didn't feel hot. She appreciated Rachel saying it - I mean, god, who wouldn't appreciate Rachel Amber saying that to you, and saying it like this? - but it never really sunk in. Here they were, surrounded by beautiful women whose literal job was to be professionally gorgeous, and Chloe was some ratty tattooed punk with cheaply dyed red hair and a long face. The suit was nice - Rachel had stolen it after having Chloe measured in some other timeline - but Chloe still felt like a fake wearing it. She was too tale, too gangly. She didn't belong here. Maybe she was just some weird piece of decoration. 'Oh look at the punk lesbian, she's so cool and weird. We're so accepting!' Rachel would realize that Chloe was holding her back, and she'd leave, and then Chloe would be left alone and homeless and poor in L.A. and have to crawl back home, a high school dropout who even failed at running away.

Fuck, but this weed wasn't working enough.

"Want to take a shot?"

Rachel nodded and turned to the rest of her posse. "Shots, bitches?"

Another cheer.

* * *

Chloe felt the dream fade away as she blinked awake. Something about Max, something about Arcadia Bay. Maybe that place would've been bearable if she'd been there with her. She wished she could remember it, could've written it down in some journal. It was strange. There was a pool?

A pool. Damnit, she was thirsty.

"Water," she thought, or said, or thought she thought, stumbling through the hallway in the direction of the kitchen. Out in the living room, the couches and floors were all occupied by sleeping models, some curled up together, others sprawled out alone with half-drunken glasses perched precariously close to them. It made her think of sleep-overs as a girl. Like when she and Max Caulfield would spend the night at each others' houses, playing pretend and creating elaborate sets for their fantastic worlds.

_What's Max up to now?_

Kitchen, right, kitchen. Water.

A pain throbbed in her head, and then she was in the kitchen, a glass of water in her hand. She held it up to her lips. Did she pour that? Was it someone else's before?

She drank it anyway. It had a shimmering aftertaste, like champagne. So a little backwash, she'd be fine.

Chloe carried the glass into the bathroom, set it on the sink, and stared at herself in the mirror. The image in the mirror swayed and blurred, the blue of her hair spilling out against her pale face and gray suit.

She blinked.

For a second there, it looked like she had blue hair. She had blue hair before, back before her and Rachel ran away. She'd had it for years. But new locations called for new looks too. When the sleep cleared from her eyes, her hair was red again.

"Chloe!"

She'd have recognized that voice anywhere. She opened the door to the bathroom, peering out into the early morning silence.

"Max?" she whispered.

Someone snored. Somewhere a car honked. No reply.

She slid back into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She looked into the mirror again.

"Okay, Chloe. Red hair, check. You're really fucking drunk." She turned on the faucet and splashed her face.

It was Max's voice. She could admit it to herself. She hallucinated hearing Max's voice. That wasn't too weird, right? This sort of thing happened all the time, when drugs were concerned. She'd taken LSD and seen far weirder shit. But Max was on her mind a lot lately, especially with her confession to Rachel a few weeks ago.

Why did that seem like such a confession? She hadn't spoken to Max for six years. She'd found her social media profiles, looked at the woman she'd turned out to be, maybe fantasized a little about what could've been, but she'd never reached out. What would she say?

"Max Caulfield," she said aloud to the mirror. "How's it...how's it going?"

Max probably wouldn't even recognize her, couldn't even stalk her online to find out. Chloe'd dropped off the whole social media thing years ago. No one else needed to know her shit, especially as a teenage runaway. But still the thought came to her.

She'd followed Max's life online enough to know that she'd moved back to Arcadia Bay, gotten into Blackwell, all so she could study with the famed Mark Jefferson. Of course, she could've have known that he'd be arrested that summer before she could ever take a class. Or that her old friend Chloe Price would've been partially responsible for the whole thing.

"It's okay."

Max gave a sympathetic smile from the mirror. "I forgive you. Ms. Perez was a better teacher anyway."

"Ah."

Chloe felt her tongue grow heavy. She couldn't even work up the courage to speak to an imaginary, hallucinatory Max. She tried to summon up the anger, but she was too fucking drunk to care.

"Chloe Price, living on the lam, bank heist extraordinaire? I'm not surprised. A little disappointed though."

"What?"

"It's just...I thought you'd want more for your life."

"It's a good life. You don't get to judge mine after you left me."

"I know. I still care about you, you know? I think about you."

"Well, I'm fine, and I don't need you. My life has gotten so much better since I met Rachel. It's really fucking weird, but it's better."

"Better than what?"

"Than before. Than whatever else would've happened."

The mirror cracked, shattering Max's face into fragments. Chloe jumped back, her quick shout of "fuck!" cut off by what she saw.

It was still Max, but now each fragment of the mirror seemed to hold something different. She'd been speaking to what Max looked like now, with her close-cropped hair and sweater. But another image showed a Max with a hoodie and jeans. Another with dyed black hair and black fingernails. Another in pajamas, her eyes red with tears.

"You okay?"

Someone else was knocking on the door. Chloe turned at the sound, but when she turned back, the mirror was whole again, and only a red-haired Chloe stared back at her.

_You really need some sleep, Price._

"I'm fine." She pushed the door opened, nearly hitting another of Rachel's unnamed friends, and stumbled past her. It was time to get out of here.

Rachel wasn't in the living room.

"Always gets the best spot in the house," she muttered, stepping over a snoring guy using an expensive peacoat as a pillow. Three people lived here, but all three rooms were closed. She tried the handle on one. Locked. She moved to the second and pushed it opened slowly. Three people were asleep - two in the bed, one laying at the foot like a dog. None of them looked like Rachel.

"And what's behind door number 3?"

Chloe had no idea whose room this was, but Rachel was lying alone on the bed, upside down, still in the same clothes. Two of her good friends were spooning on sleeping bags in the corner. Tiptoeing as much as she could - which, frankly, wasn't that well - Chloe made her way to Rachel's side. Her purse was rumbling on the floor like some kind of monster hiding underneath the bed. Chloe crouched down and found it, pulling out the vibrating cell phone.

Rachel was getting a call from Frank Bowers?

_The fuck?_

Frank saved their lives four years ago, but neither of them had spoken to their drug dealer since they'd left Arcadia Bay. Why would he be reaching out to Rachel now? Chloe knew the guy wasn't that bad, but she'd always felt uneasy when he was around Rahel. Obviously he liked her, but didn't everyone? But Rachel was twenty, and Frank...was a good bit older. Fucking creep.

She thought about answering it, then imagined Rachel concerned that she didn't trust her, and she let it go to voicemail.

_It wouldn't be a big deal to just listen to it._

_She'll know._

_So? Frank calling is weird. It's not like he's her family or anything. I introduced them._

_If you really trusted her, you'd let it go._

_It's just -_

_Maybe I don't really trust her._

She dropped the phone into the bag like it was burning. In the darkness, Rachel's face took on a different angle. It was her but, changed, like a story told by someone else, or a stunt-double. Close but not quite, and all the more wrong for its closeness. This was her? This was the woman she'd given up her life for? Her beautiful, terrifying, time-traveling love?

It was just the drugs, she told herself, as they drove back home. Rachel was tired and cranky, but her face was hers, and her lips were hers. She forgot about the strangeness of seeing Rachel like that, forgot about her suspicions or fears.

But she didn't forget about Frank.

* * *

_Somewhere, there is another Chloe, watching, caught in a loop in a field of snow and sand. She can see herself in Los Angeles, see the story of a life she never knew was possible. The visions bleed over trees, darting in shadow like some kind of kaleidoscopic projector. She tries to say something, to anyone, but her mouth does not listen._

_Somewhere, there are many other Maxs, arms outstretched, a shattering note played over and over and over, scrambling and faltering atop each other, held together by desperate need and unshakeable love. They too watch the story unfold, only they can see their Chloe in front of the image, frozen in silhouette._

_Somewhere, there is another Rachel, standing resplendent on another beach. A gnarled tree rests beside her as she gazes out into the ocean. She remembering, and the part of her that was really once Rachel Amber swims to the surface of her mind. This tale was the first of her failures, but it would not be the last. Each story failed eventually. No combination of variables ended with them all safe and happy. Not yet, at least._

_She has waited on this island for so long, for so many timelines and stories. She is tired of failing. Soon she will cast her book into the waters and leave the island forever. Her friend the crow will fly away back to his home, abandoning these three girls to their ends. She has enough in her for one more try, but she will not do so lightly. Perhaps there is something she is missing, and so this first tale plays on, it audience captive on the beach, stuck in time._


	18. The Baseless Fabric of this Vision

She thought about Frank at the strangest times.

Whenever Rachel took her shower and her phone lay on the bed, Chloe would let her hand drift closer to it, inch by inch. It would be easy to look. A quick glance to settle her curiosity. Was it just a one-time alcohol-induced thing that Rachel never even addressed? Something more? Would there be a long thread of texts? Sexts?

I'd want her to trust me. I should trust her.

She moved her hand away, every time.

When they lay cuddling on their couch, watching a movie, she wondered if Frank had brushed her hair away, like she was doing now. Did Rachel ever curl up against him, stretch out on his lap?

When she was working shows for extra cash, earbuds in while some punk band shouted and sweated out their own inner demons, she thought about Frank. It was the smell of weed that did it. She remembered being in his van, driving on a sunny evening towards Blackwell, and the Tempest. Later, she remembered him rushing Damon Merrick as reality swayed and darkened around her.

She'd imagined the scene so many times that she could recall it like a movie, like she'd worn the grooves of her mind down so much that it just seemed like something she'd actually seen. Frank and Damon, arms flailing, legs kicking, slamming against the wall. Damon, initially surprised and then filled with hate. Frank, tears in his eyes, screaming for his friend to stop. A few punches bringing Frank to his knees, crawling towards the knife. Damon stepping closer, only for Frank to kick sideways. Just enough of a break to grab the knife. In her head, it wasn't one quick movement. It was a desperate dance, death by a couple cuts, until the knife finally went in deep.

It was a hell of a fucking thing to imagine at work.

Frank did that, and then, four years later, he called Rachel. Perhaps she owed him something. Not love, not friendship, not sex or even a goddamn kiss. But maybe the occasional call. Chloe could wrap her head around that. Maybe he just called to be reminded of some good he did in the world. Check in on her, make sure she was doing okay.

She thought about Frank as Rachel floated beside her in a pool, months later, after a particularly good few weeks of time-traveling theft. She was so fucking pretty, just lying there, the perfect airbrushed image of beauty. She imagined Frank's hands on Rachel's skin, imagined her leaning up to kiss his beard. It felt wrong, but she couldn't help herself. It was stupid. Nothing could've been happening between them.

_She can rewind time._

That was it, wasn't it? That was the root of all of this. At any point, Rachel could do anything, fuck anyone, say anything to Chloe's face, and then rewind it. Wipe it all away. Could Chloe even be mad about something if it never happened in this timeline? Did that even make any sense? She could just ask, couldn't she?

_You can't surprise her. She could just rewind and have the perfect answer, keep going until she figures out exactly what to say to make you believe her and forget the whole thing._

Some nights she lay awake on their bed, curled on her side, letting the thoughts and the worries and the inner arguments boil. She'd known about Rachel's powers for years now, and they'd definitely proven useful. She let her mind wander to that darker world where Rachel's powers never activated, where god knows what could have happened to her under the influence of Mark fucking Jefferson. Chloe was forever grateful that the powers had shown up. But it wasn't fair, was it?

Chloe could have used those powers to save her father, keep him from leaving that day. Throw away his keys, unplug the phone, throw a tantrum, anything just to delay it for a few minutes. Let the butterfly's wings flap a second later and make a new, better world. And then keep going. Rachel's life was perfect, or as close to it as Chloe could see realistically happening. She never had to worry about saying the wrong thing, or making the wrong choice, or making a tiny little mistake - she could just rewind it. She could tell off a shitty boss, then rewind it. She could stab one of the hundreds of random guys catcalling her across the street, then rewind it. She could fuck anyone, then rewind it and refuse their advances.

_Life without consequences. A life perfectly cut and edited and trimmed of anything resembling a mistake._

It was a hell of a thing.

But then dawn came, as always, and Chloe let the thoughts burn away in the sun. Easier not to think about Frank and Rachel. But when she pushed those away, new ones burrowed in the empty pathways. Most of them about Max Caulfield. Her old friend. Why did she keep dreaming of her? They hadn't seen each other in years, and yet there was always a pull from her. She saw her only in dreams. Dreams of them in a motel, hiding under the covers in the rain. Splashing each other in Blackwell's pool in the dead of night. Smoking a joint in the snow underneath a tree. Wild fantasies. Other paths she could've taken. She'd always have regrets, it seemed, no matter what she chose.

One morning she woke, restless, to Rachel at her side, long hair falling down to tickle her face. She kissed the side of her neck, and Chloe forgot all about Max.

"Morning, birthday girl."

Ah. Her birthday. Never something she'd cared much about. Joyce would make her something special for dinner and they'd talk, and then she'd head up to her room to smoke and listen to music. Even when she was with Rachel back in Arcadia Bay, she never made a big deal of her birthday. All she really wanted to do was get drunk and/or high with Rachel. Now she was living a life with her all the time; how was a birthday anything special?

"Guess I kinda forgot," she murmured.

Chloe felt Rachel's grin against her neck. "I didn't. We both have off today. I pulled some favors." Rachel slid one hand up Chloe's side, warm and soft, while she slid her leg in between Chloe's. "Nothing to do today. Except, well, you."

Then Rachel's mouth was on hers, and her hands slid under her shorts.

* * *

Rachel stretched like a cat, letting her hair splay out behind her, gripping the sides of the bed, murmuring under her breath, and now one hand moved in between her legs to grab Chloe's hair, fingers tightening as Chloe tugged her closer.

"Please," Rachel whimpered, and Chloe felt her warmth around her, felt her skin wet with sweat, gripped the sides of her legs as they shivered, pushed them against her.

"Yes, yes, please, there, yes, don't stop, fuck…"

When she was done, Rachel laughed, breathlessly, and sat up. She kissed her, long and hot, and then Rachel was turning her around, pushing her down into the bed, her hands trailing down and down and down...

After, breathing heavily, Rachel nestled her head under Chloe's chin, her hair splayed out and tickling Chloe's bare skin. Chloe brushed her fingertips along the outline of Rachel's body, lingering when the other girl let out something caught between a laugh and a moan, ending with her hand entwined in Rachel's. Outside, she could hear the sounds of L.A. shrugging itself awake with car horns and street musicians. The light crept out the edges of their thick curtains.

Rachel's favorite candles couldn't quite mask the smell of sex and weed, but Chloe didn't mind. She sighed, letting the comfortable weight of Rachel's body fit into hers, like they were pieces of the same carving, never fully themselves until they were together.

"Happy birthday," said Rachel. She stared upside-down into Chloe's eyes, then broke into a wide smile.

Chloe kissed her forehead. "It's a pretty good way to start the day."

"Oh, I'm sure it'll be nothing next to your first drink of alcohol tonight! I'm so jealous, what'll it be like?"

Chloe opened her hands wide in fake amazement, doing her best 50s starlet voice. "Why, I have no idea, but I'm sure it'll be just magical!"

Then they were kissing again, and together again, and the sun crept higher and higher over Chloe's perfect life.

* * *

This time, it was Chloe's type of party. Music so loud you couldn't speak, cheap beer, good weed, and a little of some stronger stuff. Sweaty strangers screaming in unison, colliding together like molecules in some dank basement emblazoned with posters and graffiti. The bodies around them were each, in their own way, a fuck-you to the rest of the world. Angry and queer and revolutionary. Rachel laughing at her side in dark clothes and makeup. Her own hate at all the world had done to the two of them, to itself, to people like the ones here, all to satisfy the whims of some fucking shitbag elites. People like the Prescotts. Like Jefferson. So sure they were owed everything. Buildings, careers, towns, women...lives. All that hate channeled into something pure and beautiful and fucking powerful.

She'd take that over a room of coke-snorting L.A. models any day.

Luckily for her, Rachel was comfortable here too. She shouted along with Chloe; whether she had known the words before or just picked them up now or was faking the whole thing, Chloe didn't know. But here it didn't matter. Here, so far away from Arcadia Bay and Oregon and small, quiet, dying towns, she was free from everything. She was in love with a gorgeous time traveler, and she was here, and she was fucking awesome.

And drunk. Very, very, gloriously, drunk.

She was in the mosh pit near the center of the crowd, and there were arms and hands and feet all around her, and then she was at the front of the stage, the press of bodies slamming her against the guard rail, but she didn't mind the pain. The lead singer lowered herself down to Chloe's level, aimed the mic right there at her face, and she screamed something into it. Hopefully it was the words to the song. And then she was making out with Rachel in the bathroom, swallowing some pills in the bathroom, and then she was at a different show, with a different drink, Rachel's arm around her, and then she was outside in the parking lot, passing a joint around with other punks, and then she and Rachel spent some time in her car, and then they were at another show, another bar, another bathroom, and then...and then…everything slowed, and she was smoking a cigarette outside in the early morning, the sun a low ember on the horizon.

"And I thought I knew how to party," Rachel said. She leaned in and kissed Chloe's neck. She breathed out a cloud of smoke above them.

"Good fucking birthday," Chloe said, her mouth starting to feel normal again. Normal, and dry. "Could use another drink. A water." Her head pounded. Her body protested, now that it was finally aware of everything. "Home time. Yeah, time to go home."

"Yes," said Rachel, dragging out the syllables, "we have a bed at home."

"Oh yeah, a bed sounds good." She pulled Rachel closer and kissed her, and the two stumbled towards Rachel's car. When they were close, Rachel pushed her against the side and kissed her again, unlocking the car with the other hand. She looked up at her and smiled.

And then, like a skipped frame in an old film, she changed. Now she was collapsing into Chloe's arms, her hair matted with blood and her clothes blackened with ash.

"Thank fuck," she whispered, blood trickling out of her mouth. "I did it…"

"Oh god, Rachel? What...what…"

Her body was heavy, and smelt like fire. She was struggling to stand against Chloe, but her right leg lay unmoving and rigid. Her eyes flickered.

"Car...crash…"

There was no time to think. She'd been in this situation before, rushing Rachel to a hospital, her life hanging in the balance. She'd do it again, and again, however many times it took. She stumbled closer to the car, trying to pull Rachel along with her.

"No," Rachel muttered. "Not the car. Died."

It didn't make sense. The car was fine. The engine didn't die, it was...oh. In a rush of horror, she understood. A car crash. She'd died. And Rachel had almost died too, and still managed to rewind time enough to save them.

"Okay, okay, I'll call 911, I'll…"

She fumbled with her phone, one shaking hand unlocking the screen while the other cradled Rachel against her. She'd never felt so heavy and so light at the same time.

"...er way around," Rachel muttered. Chloe felt the blood sticking through her clothes.

No, not after everything. Not after Jefferson.

Everything after was a blur, images fading in and out of focus. The ambulance. Blue light everywhere, shining from the top of the van. Rachel hooked up to machines like some kind of science experiment. A storm raging outside, other cars pulled to the side of the road to be safe. And Chloe in the waiting room, again. Waiting to find out if someone else she loved would die.

"Do you need something?" a woman in a nurse's uniform asked her.

"Um."

Her tongue was heavy.

"Water?"

Her mother nodded. "One milkshake for my favorite daughter, coming right up."

She felt sick. She must have thrown up into the trashcan, because someone was removing it and handing her a plastic bag. Mr. Amber was there, sitting next to her, thanking her for driving Rachel here, forgiving her. She'd survive the stab wound.

No, that was...that already…

She was outside the hospital room door, and then she was opening it to find Mikey and Drew - thrown into their situation because of her too. No, it was Max Caulfield and some blonde girl she didn't know, balloons and cartoons strewing the walls. No, it was Chloe Price herself, and Max standing beside her bed, holding a quiet, still hand.

"I would fain die a dry death," Max whispered, tears in her eyes.

Chloe stepped closer, and the ground swayed, like a ship in choppy waters. Cannons boomed, and outside the window she saw her backyard swingset transformed in a ship. Thunder cracked, and a whale fell from the sky. When it landed, all sound stopped, then burst open like a broken speaker. She gripped her head to drown it out, but Rachel grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the moshpit of Firewalk. Rachel, radiant, dirt clogging her slack face. She grinned, and maggots churned in her smile. "Everybody lies."

She screamed and stumbled away as feet stepped on her and arms pushed her to the ground. A sharp pain split her head, and she felt blood trickle from between her eyes as Mark Jefferson lowered the gun. Scrambling to her feet, she lurched at him, only to get pulled back into Max's arms, and a boy with a black eye draped an arm around them and took a selfie. She elbowed him in the gut and pushed herself back into the crowd of people. They were all smiling and clapping, and there on stage was Rachel Amber as Prospera, and Chloe Price as Ariel. Ariel was on her knees, kissing Rachel's feet, then her legs, then going higher. The crowd whistled. A streetlight sputtered out.

"You die. All the time."

A train spitting out crows whistled, inches from her face.

A train rode by the junkyard in the snow, Max passing her a joint.

A train rode by the junkyard in the summer heat as Chloe smashed another object to bits.

Two boys walked along a train track, howling at the moon.

A seagull cried, and she walked on a beach under a starry night. Prospera awaited, a book held under one hand.

"Soon, it will all be over." She laughed, and Chloe was falling now, falling down a waterfall, down a river, down an ocean, plunging deeper and deeper into the cold water. Things swam here, Arcadia Bay drowned and forgotten. She opened her mouth to scream, but water rushed in, filling her lungs. Prospera swam behind her, lifting her up, talking in a distorted voice, "...were all spirits...melted into air...the baseless fabric of this vision…"

"Max!"

"Chloe!"

"Are you doing this?"

"No, I don't...I'm not…"

"Miss? Miss?"

Chloe lurched awake, the magazine falling from her lap. A nurse was standing above her, lit by the flickering fluorescent light of the hospital. "Sorry to wake you, but your friend is awake now. Thought you might want to see her."

"Friend?"

"Miss Amber?"

"Rachel! Is she okay?"

"She'll be alright, yes. A few broken bones, but she'll make it. She just needs…"

Chloe didn't hear the rest. She'd sprinted down the hall, all the strange dreams of hospitals blurring with the unfamiliar corridors of this one. When she found the room, she paused outside, her hand hovering over the doorknob. When she opened it, would it be Rachel inside? She felt like she was going crazy, recently. Maybe time powers were like radiation or something, and being around Rachel had messed up her head. She took a deep breath, and opened it.

Rachel lay on the bed, pushed up against the wall and connected to a machine that beeped at a steady pace. The windows showed a rainy evening, and as the door shut behind her, she could hear rain patter against the glass. She let out a breath and felt her body relax. Rachel was alive. Rachel would be okay. This was Rachel Amber, the girl she loved, the one with the time powers, the one who'd taken down Mark Jefferson, the one who'd spirited her away to Santa Monica, the one who'd loved her and fucked her and saved her and made her life perfect. She was alive. All was well.

At her approach, Rachel shifted. Her face was a mass of bruises, but she still smiled.

"Ta da," she said, her voice weak. "I made it."

"Yes," Chloe laughed, wiping her eyes, "yes you did."

She pulled a chair close to Rachel's bed, and sat down. Rachel sighed. "Deja vu, huh?"

"Yeah, seriously. I had some gonzo-ass dreams out there. You really need to fucking stop going to the hospital."

Rachel raised an eyebrow, and winced. "But I love it here. They treat me like a princess."

Outside, thunder boomed.

"Honestly, fuck cars," said Chloe. "Fuck 'em. Never did anyone any good."

"Saved my life the first time," Rachel pointed out.

"Got a point there. Okay, fuck most cars. We can keep emergency vehicles. When we rule the world and can make all the changes we want."

Rachel's smile faded. "I can rewind time and I still can't do any of that. Make the world we want."

The machine attached to Rachel kept beeping, slow and steady. It was half terrifying and half comforting.

"We have time."

Rachel snorted. "Yeah, time."

"Just, thank fuck that you have those powers. I don't know how I'd...if you…"

Rachel laughed, then winced. Broken bones. "Don't have to worry about that. I'm unkillable."

Chloe swallowed some tears. "No, you're not. You're pretty close to it, but you're still just a person. My person." She leaned down and kissed Rachel on the forehead. "You saved me. My superhero."

Rachel's eyes drifted closed, and Chloe sat down by her side, one hand resting on her bed, the other on her leg. A few moments later, Rachel curled away, facing the rain and the window.

"A superhero. Hah. It sounds so fucking arrogant to say it, but it's true. I'm like a god. Not all-powerful, but close. I remember living life without powers, but only just." She turned around, wincing, tears shimmering in her eyes. "I can't make a mistake and not correct it, if I know that I can. I don't know how to."

"Rach, it's okay, I get it...I mean, not exactly, but…"

"No, you don't. I shouldn't expect you too, but you don't. At first the powers were incredible, like a high you never come down from." She gave a short, bitter laugh. "And then you remember, there's no such thing. The powers aren't a blessing. They're a curse."

"You know that's not true."

"It is! It's exhausting. I can't sit back and just accept whatever gets sent my way anymore. I have to make it perfect, or at least close to perfect. And I can't...it's like I'm already an actor, watching myself perform a script I wrote, I'm writing, I will write. Constantly editing, making it perfect, keeping this life going."

Chloe didn't know how to respond. It made sense, intellectually, but there was no way the powers weren't a blessing. With great power came great responsibility, sure, but no one wanted to get rid of their powers!

"It's...so much." Rachel turned away, staring out the window at the rain, battering down in sheets. Somewhere in the distance, a series of car horns blared. "Keeping everything together."

"Everything together?"

"You die. All the time."

Chloe's stomach felt like it had been grasped in a strong hand and crushed. Her mouth gaped. She thought she said something in response, only to realize nothing had come out.

"Choking on food. Falling down stairs. Hit by a car. Car crashes."

"Why...didn't you tell me?"

She could see Rachel's reflection in the window. Her eyes narrowed. "Because it's so hard to live like this for me. I couldn't do that to you."

Somewhere, somehow, Chloe felt like this had happened before. The sense of deja vu was overwhelming, like being held underwater, suddenly, without warning.

"Have we had this conversation before?"

Rachel bit her lip, but shook her head. "Almost, but no. Not that I remember. And while we're on it," she took a deep breath, "I'm not having an affair with Frank."

"I asked, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"Then why'd you rewind it? I didn't believe you?"

"Do you?"

Did she?

"Yes."

"It wasn't because of that." She turned around, finally. The machine beeped, filling the silence until she spoke again. "I'm not having an affair with Frank...anymore."

_Oh._

_Frank running his hands through her hair._

_Frank and Rachel passing a blunt between them, giggling on the couch._

_Frank pulling her hair, pressing close, Rachel moaning._

_This is what you get, Chloe. Trust no one, huh? Fell for that one._

_Everybody lies._

"Say something!" Rachel was staring at her now. No one else had that commanding effect on her, even when bandaged in a hospital bed.

"When?"

Rachel sighed. Outside, a crow squawked. "Around the time I was with Jefferson."

"With?" Her stomach recoiled again. She needed to throw up.

"We didn't...nothing serious," she said, almost exasperated. Like she'd said this before.

_Everybody lies._

Chloe wanted to smash something. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to scream.

"Why?"

"Chloe, I…"

_Everybody lies._

She pounded a fist on the bedside table. "Why? Was I not good enough? Got bored of me?"

"We weren't...you and me...you know, we weren't what we are now. Not then."

"Fuck, we weren't? It's some goddamn news to me! I mean, we weren't public about it but it sure fucking seemed to me we were a thing. I guess I should've fucking known."

"Chloe, no, I always loved you! It's just...I thought I loved Frank too."

"And Jefferson? Did you love him too?"

_Everybody lies._

"I was stupid, okay! I shouldn't have done it. But I haven't been with Frank since we left together, since I got the powers, I swear! He...he saved our lives, Chloe!"

"Oh, he saved your life, so he's owed a good fuck or two, is that how it works?"

"Stop shouting, someone'll come in…"

"I don't care!" she lied. She lowered her voice anyway, clenching and unclenching her fists. Would she even remember any of this in a second? Was she the leftover one in another timeline when Rachel did rewind this? How would she know? Was this happening to hundreds of other Chloes?

Rachel was saying something, some excuse. Her Rachel. The one she'd loved for years. They'd saved each others' lives. She'd shown her that she could be happy, almost. Maybe. Their lives were precarious here, but they were their own. And now what?

"Stop, just stop," Chloe said, closing her eyes.

"Chloe…"

"Have you been with anyone else, since we got here?"

_Everybody lies._

No response. She felt resigned, now, more than angry.

"Just sex," Rachel whispered. "No affairs. Nothing emotional."

Her nails dug into her palms, but her face remained a mask.

"So, am I going to remember any of this?"

"If you want. I'm so tired."

Neither of them spoke. She could hear footsteps as doctors and nurses walked past the door, their voices an indistinguishable rumble. More cars blared outside. A bird tapped at their windowsill. Her blood pumped in her head, so loud it nearly drowned out all other sounds.

"I never lied to you," Chloe said. "I could've lied. Could've listened to your mom and never told you about your dad's little secret. You probably would've been happier that way. But I couldn't live with it. Couldn't imagine living with it. I thought, 'if it was the other way around, would I want to know? If my dad were still alive, would I want to know the truth about him, even it fucking sucked? Even if it ruined my image of him?'" She took a deep breath, and reached for Rachel's hand. Thankfully, she took it.

"I said, yes. I always want the truth, Rachel. Always. Even if it hurts. I don't want to live a lie."

Rachel nodded slowly, sniffing. Tears streaked her face. It was all Chloe could do not to wipe them away, but she was still too upset. Not angry, not sad, but some hollowed-out echo of both of them. Her perfect life was a lie. Rachel lied. The one person she thought wouldn't, couldn't, lie to her.

_Everybody lies._

"Don't rewind this. Please."

"Okay."

She wanted to say so much. She wanted to never speak to her again. Thunder roiled outside. Beside her, Rachel's eyes were closed, her face streaked with tears. She was asleep, or close to it. Chloe could leave now, and maybe things would go on longer than Rachel could rewind back. This would last. Of all the moments they'd had, all the good and bad that Chloe had never known, she'd remember this. Almost losing Rachel, gaining her back, and then, somehow, feeling her slip away again.

After a few more minutes of silence, Chloe stood up, kissed Rachel again, and turned to leave. Her hand was on the door when Rachel spoke up, her voice strangely resolute and strong.

"It always ends up like this, Chloe Price. None of your perfect worlds ever succeed.

"What?"

But Rachel was asleep, her breath soft and low, the machine beeping steadily and reassuringly by her side. Outside, the crow squawked and flew away. Rain pattered against the window. And Chloe Price drove home through the crowded L.A. streets, her hands pounding at the steering wheel, her body wracking with tears. She cried like Rachel had died, because somehow in the deep parts of her bones, she felt like she had. She let herself imagine, again and again, Rachel dying, just to steel herself against it when the day inevitably came. It was too much. She felt sick.

It was always there. Death. Ruin. She'd made it to a perfect world, somehow, mostly through luck, but maybe through a bit of her own doing it, and she could see the cracks breaking it down from within. Was life just a tally of points, where for every moment and time of beauty and joy and happiness you owed the universe another of horror and sorrow and pain? If so, why did the universe always seem to collect her debt first, and so viciously?

Above her, caught in a loop of some time endlessly repeating, a storm gathered, and the winds howled. Somewhere else, frozen in a snowy shore, Max and Chloe watched, the vision of the beginning of it all unspooling before them, refracting off the melting snow. A murder of crows blocked out the sky, and Arcadia Bay bared its soul.

And the three, in love and dead and suffering and happy and everything they could and would ever be, waited for the blue light to flash again.

For the last time.


	19. Wound the Loud Winds

The storm brooded over Los Angeles. Cars stood still on long crowded roads, their window-shield wipers struggling in vain to stop the downpour. Trash spun in circles above the concrete sidewalks. Neon lights flickered through the fog above the sprawling buildings and the masses of people running while clutching umbrellas and raincoats. And over all the sounds and cacophony of the crowded city, the sound of thunder rolled like an angry god.

Rachel Amber recovered in her hospital room, her window clouded with darkness and an endless curtain of water. The faint white noise of unknown machinery hummed. The monitor at her side beeped steadily, the IVs sending pain medication in waves, as she drifted back and forth between pain and bliss, sleeping and waking, memory and dream.

"How are we feeling today, Miss Rachel?" the nurses always asked. It didn't matter their age or their gender, it was the same greeting, in a multitude of different voices.

"I'm...feeling," she'd reply. It didn't feel right to say "good" or "bad," given the circumstances.

What surprised her was how different pain could be. She'd spent time in a hospital before, recovering from Damon Merrick's knife. She'd felt tired and shaky, but the worst part was the sharp pain concentrated in one spot, like she was being stabbed over and over again. This pain was different, diffuse; aches and pains spreading throughout her body. She tried to shift to find a more comfortable position, but with the IV and other wires strapped to her, she could only lay in the same position on her back and gaze upwards. The ceiling was white, pocked with small dots. The window to her right pattered with the rain. To her left was her small, quiet room, and a sleeping Chloe Price by her side, slumped in the guest chair. Her red hair dye was starting to fade into a light pink.

Chloe came to visit her every day, or at least she thought she did. It was hard to differentiate between the Chloe Price of her reality and the ones that came to her in dreams. Chloe, young and brown-haired, the one that she fell in love with five years ago in the junkyard. Chloe, blue-haired and tattooed, the one she'd snuck away from home to see, the one she'd laughed with and confided in and slept with and screamed at and cheated on and...the one she'd gone to after she woke up in that dark bunker. Other Chloes, some older, some crying, some angry with her, some with their arms around Max Caulfield, some standing silent and impassive in a corner, smoking.

So many Chloe's, so many different echoes of the same woman. All bristling, angry, wounded, aching people clutching at her like she was a rope and they were falling in quicksand. Rachel had loved that about Chloe. She was honest enough with herself to admit it. Being needed, being loved, being worshipped even...it was better than any drug...well, most of the time, and most drugs. She felt a pang of guilt for even thinking it, then let it wash away with the rain. It was okay to admit to herself that she needed to be needed. After all, she loved Chloe. Loved her so much she kept saving her life, over and over again, reaching for the power that left her breathless and tired and bleeding, all to keep this one girl alive.

And she'd told her about...and then didn't rewind…

The truth hurt worse than the broken ribs. She kept seeing Chloe's face fall when she closed her eyes, the expression as she realized that Rachel had lied to her, had been the one person she trusted to not lie and failed to live up to it. It wasn't a realistic thing to put upon her, but in a way, it was her fault. She'd wanted to be put on a pedestal, and now she was, and she had to deal with the consequences of that kind of expectation.

Chloe still held her arm when she visited, still kissed her when she left. What did she do back at home? Smoke? Drink? Sleep? Go looking for someone to revenge fuck?

_Cry. She probably goes home to cry._

Rachel breathed deep and let her own tears fall. No need to rewind to keep anyone from seeing them, not here.

The rain kept falling, and Rachel drifted away into memory.

* * *

She remembered the long dark fall of death. It had been peaceful, in a way, that slow descent. The edges of everything blurring and darkening, the easing of pain. Her glimpses of the stupid boy's face, lit only by the occasional bright flash and click of the camera. It would be so easy to turn away from this nightmare, from whatever was happening, and fall into the shadows. Her mind spilled out into the black.

She was being carried down the mountain in her father's arms, safe and protected and home. She was a little girl on stage, the smiles in the audience spreading to her own face when they applauded. She was running her hands through Tyler's hair, kissing Amanda, kissing Chloe, holding Chloe, pulling Chloe into the mosh pit, kissing her beneath the streetlights on a suburban road. Chloe curled up beside her on her bed, the stars shimmering on her rooftop.

She felt the knife, and the hot warmth of blood, and the angry shouts of Damon Merrick.

She'd almost died then, and Chloe had saved her. Saved her for a few years of fighting back the darkness in her life with someone at her side. The betrayal of her father had opened up an endless well of hate for him, and that hate had spilled out to the town, and even to herself. She needed to leave it, needed it like a restless itch that wouldn't let her sleep. So she tried to make it worth something, tried to pull herself into every group, be beloved by everyone, an integral part of the ecosystem of Arcadia Bay. She'd loved so many of them, in some ways. Hated them too. But of all them, she'd loved Chloe the most, loved her desperately. She was the one person that made stumbling through the darkness with a smile on her face manageable.

And it wasn't enough. Still she itched, still she wanted, still she hated. And when others came to her - Frank, who'd saved her life, Nathan, who underneath everything hated and despaired like her, and Jefferson, who believed in her - she fell for them all.

And then...that night came.

She couldn't move, and a bright flash of light covered everything, until she was somewhere else, drifting on a cloud.

She saw the blue of the Pacific Ocean first, nothing but the spreading open endless churn of the waters. She saw the deep green of a forest, sprawling over a vibrant living land. She saw thick clouds of mist coiling around the heavy trunks, bursting into whispers as huge herds of deer rushed through them. She felt herself descend into the woods and come to a stop before an enormous tree, gnarled and stooped, lined with hundreds of crows with bright blue eyes. A figure crouched beneath it, then raised glowing hands towards the tree, whose leaves recoiled into buds, then back to leaves again. Rachel tried to speak, but her mouth wouldn't move.

Somewhere, she heard herself scream.

The tree burst into flames, and the crows alighted as one, each one burning bright through the dark sky like a thousand comets, flying backwards towards the outer reaches of space. The figure turned, their face hidden beneath the aura of the glowing blue light. The glowing figure paused, tilted their head like a dog, curious. Then the light stretched out, burning like flame, before it receded, and before her was standing an image of herself, three years younger, as Prospera. She smiled, and reached out a glowing hand. The air around her felt thick and red and heavy.

"What's...happening?" she forced herself to say. The flames licked higher and higher along the tree. Bark popped and exploded.

Prospera shook her head slowly, a grin on her face. "Be collected. No more amazement: tell your piteous heart there's no harm done."

"No...harm? I'm not...dying?"

A flash of a sobbing boy, his name outside of her memory, holding her and crying out, and then it was gone. Prospera was before her, her smile turned sad. The sky above her was streaked with flame. Still the tree burned.

"No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee, of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing of whence I am…"

The whistle of a train cut through the sounds of wildfire. A deer burst through the trees, leaping softly past her. It turned to look at her, sadly, and bounded away. Her heart ached. She should remember something, there was something at the edge of her thoughts, something important happening elsewhere.

"Who...I'm dreaming...I'm dying…"

Prospera was closer now. She was crying, smiling, her hand outstretched. Rachel felt herself stumble closer, her limbs moving here even when she knew that somehow they were frozen, still, back in the dark room, and yet she was here, and it felt more real than anything, and yet...

"We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."

Prospera took her hand suddenly, and the light was everywhere, and she saw so much she did not understand, an endless spiral of lives and losses, three figures burning in the mist, and she saw them all live and love and die as the world flooded, and then all the words turned on themselves, and the ravens flew back into the tree, which grew smaller and smaller and before all of it, the wizard laughed.

"This thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine."

And then she was in the dark room, and the needle had yet to break her skin. Blood trickled from her nose. Nathan stood before her, the needle in his hand, frozen, his face trapped in one position. The air around her hot and red and frozen. Time itself, frozen.

The memory of the dream had faded, but she knew she'd changed something. Knew what would happen if she stayed here. She pushed past him, grabbed his keys from the table, climbed the stairs with shaking legs, pushed herself up into the old barn. She found his car and drove away, crying and terrified and confused, as the red and blue glow faded and time rushed back. She drove home shaking. No, not home, not to the Amber household. To Chloe. Always to Chloe.

They'd left Arcadia Bay after the trial. Not in the middle of the night, but with an honest farewell to the few people they owed a farewell to. Her parents were crying. She'd hugged her mother, ignored her father, and left. A car packed to the brim. And they drove south to Los Angeles, eager to put her new powers to work at building the life they'd been given. She'd been given something, there at the edge of death. A gift. A chance to make a new world, however similar to the last one. A chance to make something better, even if it was just for two fucked-up teens in Oregon in 2013.

And she'd screwed it up. The hate had infected Chloe too. The powers couldn't stop it. Maybe they'd caused it. It was supposed to be perfect, and sometimes it was, and other times…

She never forgot seeing Chloe die the first time. They were just talking about what to eat that night, crossing at a crosswalk, and then the car came, and Chloe was gone, and there was only that sickening crunch and a spray of red. She'd rewound instinctively, three times to calm herself down enough to keep Chloe in the dark. And it happened more and more. But every time, she was alive again, and those horrible waking dreams didn't happen.

If it wasn't the current timeline, it wasn't real. It didn't really happen.

Her head was filled with remembered dreams. Only this hospital bed, and this storm, and this sleeping Chloe by her side; they were the only things that were real. Still, she told Chloe about those other false worlds. Why did she have to tell her? It would have made things so much easier.

So dreams were replaced by regrets. Her hand twitched. The time to rewind had passed. Her powers didn't reach that far back. She was stuck with the world where she revealed to Chloe the truth. It was grueling, caring for her. She may have exaggerated how often she'd seen Chloe die, but it was more than once, and that was enough. She'd chained herself to Chloe. She loved her, she really did, but love was not a chain.

When she opened her eyes, they were wet with tears. Chloe, her eyes rimmed with lack of sleep, took her by the hand. Neither of them spoke. The rain kept falling.

* * *

Eventually, her doctors let her return home, bruised and hurt and in a wheelchair, but still alive. She'd get better, they told her. She was lucky.

_Lucky, huh?_

Chloe was unusually talkative as she pushed her back to the car, but she could hear the nervousness in her voice. It came through especially around the car itself. Rachel stayed quiet for the same reason. She remembered the sickening crunch of metal, the shock of the airbag and the warmth of the metal. She remembered thinking she should feel pain, right? But all she noticed was Chloe, flung out of the windshield, in a mangled heap.

Chloe, pushing her, talking about ordering pizza.

"Not the car."

"Rach, we have to…"

"Not the fucking car. I can't watch you die again."

She could almost hear the tears.

_Great job, Rachel. You're scaring her. Try again._

Rewind.

She took a deep breath, and shook out the fear. People drove cars every day and were fine.

_People die in crashes every day. Chloe's dad. And Chloe._

Chloe drove slowly, letting cars honk at her and pass her as she crept by. She was sweating, talking endlessly about what had happened over at the venue she worked at, about what band was playing when, about what shows they could go see. It made her angry. It wasn't fair to Chloe, she knew, but something she'd tried to bury years ago roiled in her stomach. Was this what she would have to deal with for the rest of her life? Rewinding time endlessly until she was perfect? Getting hurt to save Chloe? Having to watch Chloe die over and over again?

She managed three days of sullen silence before Chloe breached the subject.

Their apartment windows were shut, but the rain, falling now for what seemed like weeks straight, still pounded. Rachel lay propped up on the couch, with Chloe taking the recliner for her own. Her face was drawn tighter, bags ringing her eyes. She was restless, walking back and forth from the bathroom window and the living room, smoking a joint and breathing out as not to irritate Rachel's healing lungs. Usually smoking weed mellowed Chloe out, sending her into a quiet, smiling restfulness or an excited dancing energy. But this was closer to Chloe's awful LSD trip from a year ago. Manic, restless, paranoid.

Rachel felt almost as bad. The pain seemed to spread from her chest all the way to her temples. Everything was hot and pressured. She leaned over and swallowed another pain pill. In seconds, the pain drifted away, leaving some strange overwhelming blankness that was almost uncomfortable, but not quite. It was as if she was always in pain, and now she'd been shown the true condition of life free of it. There were at least some perks for nearly dying.

Chloe paced back to the bathroom, then a few minutes later, returned with a bottle of beer in her hand. She popped the top with a bottle opener on her keychain, took a few swigs, then sat down on the couch beside Rachel. In the dark of the room, lit only by the shifting white light of the TV, her hair looked blue again, then brown, then back to her faded red.

She remembered doing this with Chloe back when they first moved in, flush with excitement, curling up together, drunk and high, spending hours just entangled in each other. Now they were both broken. They were children before.

"Rachel, we need...we need to talk."

_I can't handle this right now._

Rewind.

Chloe sat down beside her, the words on the tip of her tongue.

"You going to stick with red again?" Rachel offered.

"Huh?"

"Your hair. Going to stay with red?"

Chloe pulled a strand of it down across her forehead, her eyes crossing as she tried to look at it. Rachel laughed, despite herself. Chloe offered a wan smile.

"Nah, figured I'd go au natural for awhile. See what it's like."

"Last time you had brown hair was when we met. You were cute." She laughed again. She was feeling so much better all of a sudden.

"Past tense? Pssh, you ain't seen nothing yet."

Chloe reached for her hand, but at the first touch she froze. Chloe pulled her hand away like she'd been burnt.

_Fuck, no._

Rewind.

Chloe reached for her hand, and she let the fingers close around her own. She could handle this. They could work through this. This was a minor dip in the road. Their great journey had only begun. She wasn't even 21 yet.

_You can't work through this if you keep rewinding._

She heard it in her mother's voice. Not her blood mother, but the mother who'd actually raised her. Of course, she didn't know about the rewinding, but it sounded like something she'd say. She didn't deserve to be married to that pathetic man. Didn't deserve to be blamed for it by her daughter, either. But no one got what they deserved in this world.

"Chloe, you know we're not okay, right?"

Chloe, never able to hide the slightest emotion, winced. Rachel knew what she was thinking, how she wasn't sure how to grapple with love and hate and sadness all at once, not with her. She rubbed the back of her neck, the way she always did when she didn't know where to put her body.

"No. I guess we're not." Her fingers drummed on the empty bottle. "But we can work through it, right? We've been through worse than this. I mean, we survived like three dangerous shitheads. And a car crash. And Arcadia Bay."

_No, we didn't._

The pain crept back in as pounding in her head. She rubbed her temples with her fingers, then opened her eyes to a blurry vision of Chloe. She blinked several times as the images came into focus: Chloe lifting the bottle, Chloe finishing her drink, Chloe pushing herself to her feet, standing above her, shifting from foot to foot.

"We should go back home," said Chloe, her eyes drifting as she came to a conclusion. Rachel knew the look, knew that once the idea lodged itself into Chloe's mind she'd cling tightly to it and wouldn't let go. "We could see my family again, our friends. You need to rest some. Can't model with broken ribs, right?"

Rachel felt the comeback burning in her throat. She'd done everything she could to escape the claws of Arcadia Bay, the place that almost killed them both, and now Chloe wanted them to go back? Panic brewed in her stomach at the thought of being in the same place as the Prescotts. As her father. To return would be both to plunge back into the mouth of the beast they escaped, but also to admit defeat. To admit to the world, and herself, that running away to L.A. with her girlfriend and her superpowers would be enough to make a good life.

_But it's not enough._

"I don't want to ever go back there," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Chloe knelt by her side placed a hand on her hand, and nodded, more to herself than to Rahel. "I get it, I do, but I think it's...best for us both."

She pulled her hand away. "You don't get to decide that. It's my life!"

Chloe backed away, stung. Something shifted in her eyes. She looked at Rachel like she didn't recognize her. Or didn't want to.

"Who are you? Is there a real Rachel Amber? Just don't fucking lie to me, please. I want the truth. For once."

This wasn't the first time Chloe'd asked her that. She usually rewound, changed the subject. It wasn't even the first time anyone asked her that. It always came to this point. Any of her short-lived flings. Who was she?

It never made sense to her. She was herself, Rachel Amber. People were always different around other people. It wasn't just her. She was the person they needed. Her parents wanted the perfect student and daughter, and so she was that for them. Blackwell Academy wanted a bright shining star to put on their brochures and earn them donations, and so she was that for them. Chloe wanted someone understanding and darkly romantic, someone suffering like her, someone to stand side by side with while they told the world to fuck off, and so she was that for her. None of the Rachels were lies, per se. She was all of them. And none of them. Did other people have some central self she that she was missing? Was she a sociopath? What did they mean?

She asked herself that every time, and no one ever answered for her.

"I don't know what you want me to say. I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Sorry?!"

"Yes."

"Sorry means you wouldn't do it again! How do I know you won't do it again?"

"You don't!"

She hadn't meant to shout, but she couldn't hold back her anger anymore. Chloe looked startled, her mouth slightly agape, at a loss for words. Rachel kept going.

"I don't know either. I can tell you that I love you, but...it's not going to be simple with me, Chloe. I've tried to be the person you wanted for so long, because I needed you, and I still do, but it's not enough. We're not kids anymore. I don't believe that 'love conquers all,' that if it's the two of us together we'll handle anything. I need more than that. I need my own life, to do my own things, be...all of the Rachel Ambers there are." She took a deep breath, despite the pain in her ribs. She felt her fingernails draw blood as she clenched her fists tightly. Chloe began to say something, but she cut her off again. "I want to tell you that I won't lie to you again. I mean it, right now, that I won't cheat on you again. But I can't...guarantee that I won't feel differently. I can't promise to love you forever. I love you right now. I want you right now. And that has to be enough for you. If it's not, you can leave. I really fucking don't want you to, but that's how it has to be."

Thunder boomed in the silence.

Chloe wiped her eyes with her arm, leaving them red and angry.

"I'm so fucking stupid," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "Of course there's no such thing as soulmates. I just thought we could…"

It hurt.

Worse than learning about her father. Worse than leaving Arcadia Bay. Worse than the other times she'd had this sort of conversation with Chloe. The air was hot and wet and her head felt like it was going to split, but even that didn't hurt as badly as seeing Chloe like this. She watched, tears rimming her eyes, as Chloe shivered in front her.

"I'll go...I'll go back. I shouldn't have left," Chloe whispered. She kept turning her head, as if looking for support from a non-existent audience. Like she'd forgotten her lines in a play. She turned back to Rachel and took a shuddering breath that turned into a sob. "I love you. So much. I know I can't be the only thing in your life, but I thought you could at least tell me the truth. I guess I always knew I was wrong."

"I'm sorry." It was a pathetic thing to say. It was all she could say. Her hand twitched.

"I'm going back to Arcadia Bay." She turned, threw on her jacket, grabbed her bag. "Tomorrow. And you can come with me. But I can't be here."

It hurt too much. She reached out a hand.

And rewound.

Again.

And again.

Until something broke, and the world stopped moving. Chloe's tentative smile only just forming. The individual raindrops outside frozen like shrapnel about to strike. Her heartbeat shaking the sky.

"Chloe?"

She couldn't move. She tried to rewind again, but nothing happened. Only the red light, and the pressure, and the trickle of blood running down her nose.

"Chloe! CHLOE!"

No one answered. No one moved. Nothing made a sound.

Even the rain was quiet.

* * *

The images played like a film, the story of another Chloe, another Rachel, another Max. Somewhere outside of time, the girl who fled from death and the one who saved her, waited and watched, stretched over an infinite minute on a snowy beach.

_Fuck._

_That's...that's awful._

_Jesus fucking Christ._

_Is this what you wanted? To be with her? It...didn't seem like she wanted you._

_No, I don't...I don't remember any of this…_

_None of it? Chloe, I've seen so much, in all the worlds, and now I remember them all, and I think this one..._

_I don't care! I don't care about any of this! I just want to be done. No more time travel. No more perfect worlds. No more fucking alternate realities. I need to be in one place, with one person. With you. The...the real you._

_…_

_I know that means some other Chloes will have to suffer. I know! I just...what I do has to matter, right? All of this...this vision, whatever this? All of these alternate timelines...if everything happens, does anything matter? Why show us this? Who's doing this to us?_

_I think I get it, Chloe._

_Of fucking course. Enlighten me._

_This was the first time. It didn't work. Whatever gave us these powers...it keeps trying again. The three of us; you, me, Rachel. The powers help some of us, but…_

_They fuck over the other one._

_At least that, yes. Sometimes all of us. Everything falls apart. And then it tries again. And me - or Rachel, or you - makes a bunch of other timelines. And they all fall apart eventually. Do you get it?_

_It wants something._

_Right! It's not a force of nature, or random chance, it has goals. It wants us to do something...all three of us...and it keeps giving us the chance to do it, and we haven't done it yet!_

_Max, I'm so fucking tired. I love you, just you, I loved Rachel and always will but if I had to choose I choose you. Not all the millions of you...the you I fell in love with. I don't want to deal with this anymore._

_…_

_Max?_

_I love you too. I'm sorry. I know the other you didn't like when...when she said that, but it's true. I'm really sorry, Chloe. I thought that if we were in love, we could handle everything. But now...I don't know. I don't know if love is enough._

_Still not gonna concede that it was us who destroyed the town, especially after seeing all this shit. But…you've got a point. We're still gonna be us, no matter what timelines we're in. I was in L.A., with Rachel, doing what I'd always wanted to do...and it wasn't enough. We're still fucked up._

_It's not enough. But it's still pretty great, right?_

_Yeah, it is. But I need you to be honest. No more lies about powers, no more doing stuff just to save me. I need to know everything. I've never wanted anything else than that, seriously. I'm not fucking around._

_I promise. All of…all of the me's promise._

_Okay. Good. Well. If I have the thousand Max Caulfield's behind me, I think I'll be alright. Except...uh..._

_Getting out of this?_

_Yeah, I'd love to get out of this weird frozen time loop shit. Especially now that the movie's over. Not even any credits._

_This feels familiar._

_What?_

_That place we went to after the storm chased us? With the tower and the forest? It's like...a place outside of time._

_A place outside of time? Why not? Jesus._

_Whatever gave us the powers wouldn't show us just to keep us locked up, right? There's got to be some reason._

_Okay, fine. I've had a ton of weird dreams lately, I guess this isn't out of the ordinary._

_It's a tower...a forest...a landmark…_

_Max?_

_It's a lighthouse! It's a way for finding where we need to go!_

_Professor Max over here. What do you mean?_

_All of these timelines, they're all connected! I mean, they all exist, and this place is the...it's the lighthouse for them, how we can find our way back!_

_Back to what? We've already tried fixing everything…_

_You and me tried. But it's not just us. Rachel's tied in with this too. It's always at least one of the three of us. Maybe we have to be together...all of us...knowing all of what happened. Maybe together we can figure out what it is we're supposed to do!_

_Good a plan as any, I guess. But where do we start?_

_At the beginning. Can't you feel it? This is the spot. We have to go back there. To Rachel and you. But knowing everything we know now._

_Right here? Where Rachel froze her whole timeline? But where are you?_

_Probably back in Arcadia Bay! You need to get her to come with you. It has to happen there, with all three of us, with all our memories. It has to._

_Wait, I feel something…_

_Yes! I can do this, I can choose where to go! Chloe, come find me when you get there! I love you._

_Max? Max!_

* * *

And so, in the multiple twisting threads of time, one happened "first," or near enough to it. Rachel Amber died in the Prescott's dark room, Chloe Price died in Blackwell's bathroom, both at the hands of Nathan Prescott. He managed six months in juvie before his father and his father's money got him out, and then managed other three months before he hanged himself. Jefferson remained untouched, and one day, brought Max Caulfield into the dark room. Afterwards, she dropped out of Blackwell, never fully understanding why. Her life dwindled in a sad quiet, and she never took another photo.

Three lives, bright with promise, snuffed out by a man's thirst for pride and power. That's all they were supposed to be.

Until something intervened. Something old, deep in the roots of Arcadia Bay. The last gasp of a dying land, a gift meant to break this tragedy into something better, through any means necessary. A stubborn refusal to let these seemingly insignificant deaths happen. And so the powers entered the world. But time and fate do not take kindly to being challenged. And so the tempests rage on, sending rain and wind and lightning and the roaring beast of death after these three through acts of nature and chance and human malevolence.

But the first time things changed, Rachel Amber saved herself, and left Arcadia Bay with Chloe Price in tow. Left for a life of petty crime and beautiful sunrises. And so they lived on, happy and content, for a time. Until their great Enemy roared its head: doubt, distrust, the gnawing hunger for perfection. Random death. Tragedy. Chloe clung to another life to keep her from falling into her own darkness. Rachel fled into other lives, other moments, rather than face those she hurt.

This was that time. This was the first time they lost. This was the first time the thing of darkness crushed their light. It would not be the last. But perhaps, in one of a million worlds, they could find their answer, back at the beginning.


	20. Suffered by a Thunderbolt

Who is Chloe Price?

First, consider the unchangeable variables. Chloe Price was born to William and Joyce Price in Arcadia Bay, Oregon, on March 11, 1994. She has XX chromosomes, naturally brown hair, and is, by most accounts, a Pisces. She was born with two arms, two legs, two eyes; a healthy young child who would grow up to be a tall, lanky young woman.

Apart from that, all bets are off.

We've learned enough in this series of tales to gather that the possible Chloes were often similar. She was a bright, precocious child with an interest in science, creativity, and talking back to authority figures. She was pretty smart by all accounts, and had a bright future ahead of her, going by the standards of the time and place. In most timelines, she was close with her parents, but especially her father, and had at least one best friend; Max Caulfield. The two were inseparable, until, well, they were separated. The Caulfields moved to the Emerald City - Seattle, Washington - and she was left alone. In some of these timelines - the ones we might consider to have happened first - her father died just days before, killed by that most deadly of American predators, the car. Without her father and her best friend, Chloe fell into a solitary darkness. Her life was still not terrible; she had a home and a loving mother and didn't have to starve or fear for her life, but all was not well in her head. She started smoking and drinking, both quite too young to safely do, and fell behind in her classes.

Or, as you've seen, she didn't. Her father lived, and bought her a car, and one day a car came for her, and she was paralyzed. Max Caulfield came to visit her years later, and pulled the plug, letting her die on her own terms.

Or, she didn't.

There are a lot of possibilities here. But in most of them, Chloe Price finds her way into the arms of one (or both) of two young women: Rachel Amber and Max Caulfield. You know the story - Rachel first (or they were 'just friends', but honestly, you know better), then her tragic disappearance, then Max's return, and the whole grand adventure, which ended with a storm crashing through Arcadia Bay and the two driving off into the darkness.

Or, they didn't.

From the vantage point of somewhere outside of time, let's say for the sake of discussion, a lighthouse in a dark, endless forest, Chloe Price has a lot of different lives. In some, she's depressed, in some she's enthusiastic, in some she loves Rachel, in others she loves Max, and probably, in others she loves other people or none at all. There's probably even a world where she loves Warren.

Okay, probably not.

There are so many memories and so many lives and so many different experiences to shape so many different Chloe Prices, that the range of her personality, of her self, is wide. So, when Chloe Price found herself in a room in a Los Angeles apartment, a backpack slung across her shoulder and rain pouring down outside, somewhen in the year 2015, with a recovering Rachel Amber laying on the couch across from her, it was impossible to truly say which Chloe Price she was.

Because she remembered all of them, in that one split second. She remembered the pathways of her life branching off like tributaries of some giant river viewed from above, she remembered grieving her father's death and celebrating his birthday years later, remembered nights curled up beside Rachel and nights curled up beside Max, remembered playing in a band, remembered graduating from Blackwell and getting expelled from it, remembered storms and wildfires and floods, remembered finding Rachel buried in the junkyard and helping her bury Jefferson. And she remembered a time away from time, and a vision of another life on a frozen beach, and Max telling her to find her, wherever she was now.

She drowned in memory, in identity. And so she clung to the pieces that made sense, pulling herself back as if someone had tossed her a rope in the rapids of her past lives. She stitched herself back together, piece by piece, following the trail of consciousness that resulted in her being here, right now. It felt like even more years passed, in that one split second in the darkened room, as she assembled a story of Chloe Price that made sense. Her father's death. The Caulfields leaving her behind. Finding Rachel, falling in love with her, losing her. Max's reappearance. Searching for Rachel and finding what was left of her, then hiding with Max until they could stumble out to the lighthouse and see the storm coming. Fleeing in their car, stopping at that motel, kissing in the bed. The days on the road. Finding out she could access Max's time powers, and then the flood, and the other lives.

She let herself keep those memories. The good life she could have had, and in a real sense did. She remembered all those years with her father, all those times just being in love with Max. And she let herself keep some memories of life in L.A. with Rachel. The good ones. But all these she held separate, away. She needed the anchor of a narrative to make any sense of this, even if it wasn't exactly true.

And when she'd saved herself from drowning in the depths of her own history, she looked up to see Rachel Amber in tears.

They'd been fighting, she remembered. Before Rachel broke time rather than deal with her own demons. Or, at least, broke time while trying to deal with her demons. Chloe tried to find that well of rage and hurt this particular Chloe had been feeling, but there was too much relief, the still staggering shock of seeing Rachel alive, to let her feel angry. Despite everything, she'd never be able to forget digging in the dirt at the junkyard, and breaching the smell. Something still always beat at the back of her head the fact that Rachel Amber was dead. But now she was alive.

She went to her immediately, climbing on the couch next to her just to feel her heart-beat, feel the warmth of her skin, her smell. Rachel leaned into her, sobbing wordlessly, guilt and pain and fear shifting on her face like lights in a nightclub, each one revealing a different person.

"Chloe, I'm…"

"It's okay," she whispered, taking her hand and squeezing tight. "It's okay."

_When did this happen? When did you become the comforter? The forgiving one?_

_I learn, eventually. Takes a couple lifetimes, though._

Her phone buzzed inside her pocket, insistent. She remembered one set of memories, what seemed like eons ago, when she'd gotten angry at Max for answering her phone in the middle of an important moment. But that may have saved Kate's life, so Chloe raised a finger and checked the call. Her current phone didn't know the number, but who else could it be?

"Max?"

"Oh god Chloe, please tell me you remember…"

"I do. I remember a whole fucking lot, actually. But yeah, it's me. You know, all of me."

On the other end of the phone, Max whooped loud enough to hurt Chloe's ears. "I'm really glad that worked," she said, almost laughing. "Well, glad is the biggest understatement of the century."

"Definitely." She gave Rachel a hesitant thumbs-up. It felt insulting and patronizing, but also like old times. She would have to get used to navigating this weird new head-space, where every gesture and reference could mean contradictory things, even to her own memories. Rachel nodded slowly, curling up inside herself underneath the blanket. Chloe could almost see the rush of thought and memory behind Rachel's eyes, as she too tried to sort out the tangled mess of her alternative memories.

"So we're all here, in this first - I guess it's the first - timeline, right? Like the...thing...showed us? Now what?"

Max breathed out slowly on the other end. "I don't know exactly, but I keep feeling like we all need to be together. You, me, and Rachel."

"I like us all being together too, but what does that have to do with any of this?"

"I don't know, Chloe, it's almost there, but I can't figure it out…"

_It's happening again, Chloe. Another world, another timeline, another fight with Max. Endless and endless and endless. Only this time Rachel's there to make everything even more confusing._

_Shut the fuck up, inner voice._

Suddenly, something clicked. Chloe breathed out slowly, afraid that once she said it out loud, it wouldn't make as much sense as it did in her head.

"Can you still, you know, rewind?"

"Yes," Max said almost instantaneously.

"I can rewind too," said Rachel, her voice weak. "Sorry. You already asked me."

_I'll deal with that in a second._

"Rachel can too. And assuming I can still rewind when we're together…"

"We all have the power!"

"Yeah, I mean, I don't know what we do from there, but it's the best idea I have. Best superhero team you've never heard of. The Arcadia Bay Brigade."

"You're a genius, Chloe Price."

"In every timeline."

Max and Rachel both laughed at the same time, and something in Chloe's heart fluttered. She'd never dreamed that she could make a life work with both Max and Rachel. She'd never dreamed that she could make a life work with both Max and Rachel. The only time they'd done anything together, really, had been the time they murdered and buried Jefferson. Everything was too fucked up to enjoy the surreal sense of being with the two people she'd really loved, and Rachel had only grasped at the edges of her other memories. Now Rachel remembered being with Chloe, and despising her, and everything in between.

In the long, anxious hours that followed, they made their plan, and though it hurt to do, Chloe hung up the phone. The rain kept falling outside, and the storm kept the skies cloudy and dark. It must have been early in the morning.

Rachel had fallen asleep, even too tired to deal with the chaos of her merged memories. Some part of Chloe wanted so badly to lay down next to her. She'd done it so many times, on that same couch, in this same apartment, looking out this same window. It would be easy. It wasn't cheating, not really.

_It's a choice, though, Chloe. It would be a choice. It would mean something._

She tugged the blanket closer around Rachel, and kissed her forehead. Then she found the bed one Chloe Price called hers, and let herself fall slowly, painfully, to sleep.

* * *

Once Chloe would have been nervous to drive along Route 5 at night, especially during the rain. The bright lights of the other cars wrecked her own night vision, and the windshield wipers never seemed to move fast enough to offer any clear sight through the water. She always clutched the steering wheel too tightly, always breathed too quickly. Cars had come to kill her and those she loved too many times for her to ever feel comfortable in one again. Just another part of the dream she'd had with Rachel, and then Max, that all this time travel had ruined forever. But she'd done this before, and this was, she hoped, the last time she'd have to. They might be stuck traveling through collapsing timelines forever, but if anything offered the chance to escape, it seemed like they'd find it here, now, with all three of them together and aware of everything.

Rachel was beside her, wrapped in a blanket, her head lolling as she drifting in and out of sleep. It was eerie, watching her, remembering a similar drive in the rain going the opposite direction with Max. How many years ago was that? She'd lived enough separate lives that she should be ancient. And here she was, twenty-one again, repeating all her past mistakes.

It was a fucking stupid idea to take the still-recovering Rachel along for a long car ride, but Max was sure all three of them needed to be in Arcadia Bay. So they'd packed a few bags worth of food and supplies, stuffed them in the back of Chloe's wretched old junker, and set off. It took almost half an hour to get Rachel in the car, even with Chloe supporting her. She had walked so slowly, each step painful. Her face never changed expression, but she could almost see the ripples of pain in her eyes, like stones tossed into a pond.

The rain had been falling steadily for two weeks, and Chloe couldn't help feeling nervous. If she ever made it out of this - really, out of this - and settled into one timeline for good, she'd have to move somewhere dry. Rain made her think of the wasteland of her own home, of broken lighthouses and beached whales.

_But I would fain die a dry death._

A sharp pain in her head, and then Max was beside her, asleep in the blanket.

"No," she whispered, blinking quickly. "Chloe, that already happened."

When she looked again, it was Rachel again. She stirred, mumbled something, then fell back asleep. The windshield wipers pounded rhythmically in the silence.

This wasn't the first time. The ripples in her memories - or realities, she wasn't certain - were coming more frequently, though now she'd figured out a few ways to keep control. She had to follow the chain of the self-story she'd constructed, even if it wasn't strictly speaking true. She was Chloe Price. Her father died. Max left her. She fell in love with Rachel. Rachel left her. Max came back. They couldn't save Rachel. Max saved her and the town died for them. They fell in love. They made a new timeline where they could be together for years. It all fell apart, eventually. And now, stuck in this other strange timeline, all three of them - Chloe Price, Max Caulfield, and Rachel Amber - had to be in Arcadia Bay. All three, alive. All three, with powers.

She looked at her hands, gripping the steering wheel tightly. She remembered holding Max's, reaching out in the desert, and feeling the warm red pulse of time rewinding on itself. How many other people could do this? Was it just the three of them? Or were there billions and billions of other worlds, each one fragmenting into billions more. Or did other people have different powers instead?

"This is weird."

She could see Rachel's eyes open through the rear-view window.

"Yeah. You should get some rest though. Long drive and all."

"I nearly die in a car crash with you, because time's trying to kill you, and now we're back in one, heading to the same place that you saw get annihilated, also because time was trying to kill you?"

"Well, when you put it that way…"

"Like I said. God, I've never met anyone weirder than you, Chloe Price. And I've met some wackjobs."

"Guilty as charged."

Rachel yawned, shifting to try to find a position that didn't hurt her still-healing ribs. "So tell me the story."

"What?"

"You know, the Max Caulfield story."

"I, uhh…"

"You never stopped thinking about her in the timeline where we were together in L.A. You were still talking about her all the time when we were together in Arcadia Bay. And in the other one you were dating forever. But now I know that wasn't the first. How did you up with her?"

"I mean,"

She put a hand on Chloe's shoulder. "It's alright. I'm not jealous. I mean, okay, maybe I'm a little jealous. We can…sort out other things when we're done with the time magic shit. I'm just curious."

"You sure?"

She nodded. "I'll probably fall asleep anyway. Better be a damn good story."

Chloe thought for a moment, then let out a quiet laugh.

"What?"

"Just, I was driving Max after…the whole storm incident, and we were in this car, in the rain, and I told her all about us. The only version I knew at the time. The hooky-Tempest-Damon Merrick-high school dropout-Arcadia Bay version of us. That's the…one that seems like the first to me."

"Ah. Well, great minds think alike, I guess. So, commence with the storytelling, or a girl's gonna fall asleep."

"Okay, okay. Well, you, um, went missing, and I was driving around, putting up posters…"

"Like I was a lost puppy."

She let herself glance away from the road to glare at Rachel. "Don't. Seriously. Despite everything, it's the worst fucking part of my life. You…dying? It fucking destroyed me."

Rachel nodded, swallowing. "Okay. I'm sorry. I mean, if I don't laugh about it, it'll fucking traumatize me, but I get it. Continue."

"I was looking for you, and I got tangled up with Nathan Prescott, and…well, long story short, I tried to threaten him in the Blackwell girl's bathroom, and he pulled a gun on me, and…apparently, in some timelines, killed me, but in the one I remember, someone pulled the fire alarm…"

* * *

They stopped for gas somewhere outside of Sacramento. After her story, Rachel had fallen asleep, so Chloe left her in the locked car and started filling the tank. Outside, the rain beat down against the covering of the gas station. Two other people were filling their own tanks in silence, one glued to the ad-reading screen, the other staring vacantly off at the road. She could see her own reflection in the window as she watched her own car. She was still Chloe Price. Still tall, gangling, sharp featured. She was wearing an expensive rain jacket this timeline's Rachel had bought for her for Christmas. Her hair, somewhere between faded pink and bleached brown, was wet and plastered to her face. She opened the car door again and pulled out her old beanie from the glove compartment. It was probably too hot for it, but it felt right.

The pump clicked to a stop, and when she was finished, she took another look at the car window. Rachel still slept, so she stepped into the store for a bathroom break. It felt surreal. She'd done this before, again, with both Max and Rachel.

_Thank god for gas station shops. Perfect for refueling your car and body when you're running away from home or running back to it._

"Some storm we're having," the cashier muttered as she entered, not even looking up. Behind the bullet-proof glass, he was reading a faded magazine. A large bag of chips was open beside him.

"Um, yeah, definitely," she said. This guy had no idea what was happening. Almost no one did. Wars were being fought, animals were dying, people were getting married and lying and loving and the world spun on, and almost no one knew that all of it was just one of maybe-infinite timelines. They kept going as if it mattered.

The fluorescent lighting above flickered. The cashier's phone played some news program, too softly to make out the words, only the distorted muffled voice of people talking. Chloe shook her head and tried not to think so much. She took a step closer to the front desk. "Got a bathroom?"

"Customers only," he said, not looking up.

"I just bought gas. That's me, out by #3."

He nodded, still not looking up, then pointed around the back. "Go ahead."

She headed back past a rack of cheap sunglasses and sports' magazines. Maybe there would be some timeline where she gave a fuck about sports, but it wasn't any of the ones she'd lived so far. What would that be like, to live a life where she could care about stuff like sports and magazines, tv shows and video games? Once she would've scoffed at the idea, but now? If it was with Max, she could manage it.

The bathroom door was heavy, and inside it smelled like piss and smoke. The lights were humming that empty sort of noise old machines make.

"Home sweet home," she muttered, thinking of every shitty club she'd worked out in L.A. Though, to be honest, every punk showed smelled like this, even the good ones. She locked the door and sat on the cold metal toilet, pressing her fingers against her temples. Afterwards, she washed her hands and looked at her faded face in the mirror. She was fucking tired.

It came to her then, just like it did whenever she was really drunk or high at a party. Go to the bathroom, get some peace and quiet, and you realize what you haven't been paying attention to.

_Peace and quiet._

_Quiet._

She couldn't hear the storm. She couldn't hear anything.

In the mirror, Jefferson loomed behind her, a pistol in his hand and a grin on his face.

She whirled around, and everything exploded.

A flash of blue, and all around her the pieces of the walls, already broken and inches away from impaling her, retreated backward. She held on, her hands outstretched, until the pressure built in her head and she had to release it. She sunk down to the floor, breathing hard.

_Don't know what that was, but I'm not fucking dying in a bathroom again._

She pushed her way out of the room, running as fast as she could.

"Get out!" she shouted at the cashier. "Get the fuck out!"

Without pausing to see if he paid her any attention, she ran out into the gas station and hurried straight to her car. Rachel was awake, her eyes wide, her hand plastered to the window. Once she was inside, she started the engine and pulled away.

"I know, I know, I rewound, I'm going," Rachel managed to get out, seconds before lightning struck the gas station.

* * *

Whether it was Chloe's rewinding or Rachel's, or somehow a combination of the two, they managed to get the car far enough away from the gas station to avoid being burnt alive. The explosion rocked the car, pushing it further and sending the car spinning on its end, and then, miraculously, back upright.

The car creaked and groaned, splayed out on the side of the road, as the flames shuddered higher and higher in the distance. Rachel leaned out the car window and threw up, while Chloe spat out some blood from where she'd bitten her tongue.

When Rachel was ready, they were off again, leaving the burning wreckage in the rear-view mirror as the sound of ambulances and police sirens trailed behind.

"At least it's raining," said Chloe, when they were about an hour away. It was the only thing she could think to say. Rachel's rib wounds had flared up again, and they were both battered, bruised, tired, and afraid. But alive. At least, these versions. She tried not to think about the Rachel left to watch the gas station explode with Chloe inside.

_Guess time got to that one. I'm sorry, both of you. But, I guess some Chloes have to die so other Chloes can live. Live, and maybe make it so this doesn't have to keep happening._

They checked into a motel when it was clear Chloe couldn't keep driving, but this time there was no exhilarating confession of passion underneath the sheets. They were both too hurt, and they fell asleep after downing a cocktail of meds Rachel had brought.

Chloe's dreams were confusing and muddled, even more so than usual, and when she awoke she couldn't remember much of them. The only scrap that she could remember was a police car flipping over, like it'd been tossed by a giant, and the echo of a ringing gun-shot. Oh, and there was some other stuff with Max, or maybe Rachel? She still felt sleepy as she woke up Rachel and got them moving. There were several anxious texts from Max, and a missed call, but Chloe reassured her on the phone as they made their way into Oregon and towards Arcadia Bay.

It was evening by the time they made it into the town, passing the famous Welcome to Arcadia Bay sign and driving down the same streets she's seen obliterated so many times. She resisted the urge to stop at the Two Whales when they passed it – she'd already said her goodbyes to her parents in other timelines, and maybe the best thing for the entire town would be for the three time-traveling members of it to do what they came here to do quickly, and then leave. So she kept driving until she reached the parking lot for the park where the lighthouse – and Max – waited.

She'd done some research the previous morning, while Rachel was in the bathroom. They'd need a wheelchair for Rachel, since she still wasn't feeling good enough to walk. She texted Max that they'd arrived, and headed into the visitors' center. Inside, a kid who was only slightly above sixteen sat behind the desk, swiping at his phone. She could see a few foldable wheelchairs in the corner.

"Can I, uh, borrow one of these?"

The kid set down his phone only slightly, raising his eyes at her. "They're for guests with disabilities only."

"It's for my friend. She's recovering. Can't really walk well."

He looked back at his phone and kept swiping. "$13."

She flipped open her wallet and paid him her last twenty, then grabbed the wheelchair just a tad too aggressively.

Back outside, she helped Rachel into it, lifting her as much as she could. She remembered the faint memories of being entangled with Rachel in many other ways, but brushed them away. She needed to focus on this...whatever this was. Mad Max's mad plan.

"Thanks," Rachel said weakly.

"Don't thank me yet. Max's waiting for us at the lighthouse, so we got a bit to go still."

Rachel nodded and breathed out slowly. "Then let's go."

* * *

"This fucking thing," Chloe muttered, pushing Rachel's wheelchair through the mud. Her arms strained with the effort, but she gripped harder every time Rachel winced with pain at a bump in the path.

"Thanks," said Rachel softly, her voice muffled underneath the hood of her rain-jacket. Above them, the branches of the trees swayed in the wind, while the leaves hissed with rain. A black cloud loomed even higher, coiled like a snake.

"Weird, being back here, isn't it?" said Rachel, her hands absent-mindedly worrying at her sleeves.

Chloe shrugged. "Nothing's weird to me anymore. I keep circling around the same places in all my lives. Guess that's destiny, huh?"

"Destiny. How can destiny be a thing when we know about multiple timelines?"

"Maybe destiny's just the stuff that appears in most of your timelines? Like, the average, essential version of your life."

"I guess mine is to die young?"

"Hey, same."

Now the ground sloped more dramatically upward, and she could see the lighthouse against the dark sky. Max would be there, on that bench, just like all the times they'd ever been together.

_All the times she lied to you. All the times she was obsessed with you. All the times she gave up her mind to another version of herself. And now Rachel's here too? They're both fucked up._

_I'm fucked up, too._

_Sure, but they make it worse. Why are you doing all this? This crazy plan isn't going to work, and it's not even really a plan? What makes you think rewinding time is ever going to solve the problem of rewinding time._

_God, shut up!_

She'd had enough of arguing with herself. The darkness inside her, that voice that would always gnaw at the foundations of anything she decided to do or believe, wasn't going away. It might be right, though she doubted it at the moment, but more importantly, it wasn't useful. She needed Max, and she needed Rachel, and they needed to try something.

So she kept pushing, focusing all her energy outside of her own head, on something physical, something real. Getting Rachel up this hill, through the mud and the rain and the storm, to Max, and some kind of a solution. The lighthouse was above her, guiding her step by step, safe, warm. Like a ship tossed out in a tempest, looking for safety and home.

Home. Max was home.

And Max was here.

"Chloe!"

And then, as if nothing had happened, she was back in Max's arms. She hugged her closer, resting her chin on Max's head. Just like with Rachel, she could still remember her feelings of betrayal, the confusion at the knowledge that there was no real one Max, that every time she'd been with her it was with some other version, but all of that seemed less important now. They were all here, and alive, and together, and that would have to be enough.

She felt Rachel's eyes on her, and pulled back slowly. Who was she with now, technically? If they all remembered everything, then…

"Rachel," Max said, smiling softly. "I'm so glad you're okay."

"Okay is a strong word, but I'm alive. And we all know how big a deal that is." She tried to laugh, but they could all tell it was too close to the truth. Chloe and Max only managed slight smiles.

Chloe turned to Max. "So what are we doing here? I dragged our sorry asses all the way here from LA, through yet another fucking storm, and we almost got blown up. Or technically, did get blown up, but we're alright now. It's been...a tough couple of days. Worth it to see you of course," she grinned, "but, yeah, things are weirder than usual."

"Yeah," Max said. "I totally get it. Well," she rubbed her arms the way she always did when she was nervous about something, "I think we have to be here. We've crossed paths a lot in all the timelines, and some of us have had the power in all the timelines, but now we're all synced up. It's like...we've all gone from timeline to timeline, adding memories, tying our pasts together, until now we're…" she shrugged.

"The most complete versions of ourselves," said Rachel. Max looked back at her and smiled again.

"Yeah, I guess that's it. The most complete versions of ourselves."

"And now we all have powers?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah. So we're finally all here, all with powers, and we're all together. Right here. This is where everything happens." She turned to Chloe. "You know that...that place we went to? The place...outside of time?"

"No, I completely forgot about the weird inter-dimensional forest I went to. I was too busy thinking about all the timelines where I got to play in Firewalk."

No one said anything. "Wow, tough crowd. Yeah, I remember."

"Sorry, things are a little tense. Yeah, so there was a lighthouse there, right? This is where I first had the vision of the storm, before I even rewound at all. This place is special. It was important to Chloe and me, and to you two, I think. If there's something about Arcadia Bay itself, the ground underneath us, I think right here is where it's all focused. So it just...feels right. I don't know how I know this, but I know it. We have to be here, all of us, and...rewind. Otherwise, all the timelines are just going to keep breaking apart, all the memories getting confused, all the strands getting tangled…"

She trailed off as thunder drowned out her words.

Chloe rubbed the back of her neck. "Okay, let's say you're right. So what? What are we trying to do? If we're fixing all the timelines, do we end up with just one?"

"Maybe," Max said, shrugging. "I think that's definitely a strong possibility."

"Only one," said Rachel, to no one in particular. They both looked down at her, huddled in the wheelchair.

"There's got to be one that we're all alive in, right? There's the one where we're all at Blackwell…"

"That one was pretty cool," said Max.

"Until we killed Jefferson," said Chloe.

"Yeah, until we killed Jefferson."

"Was there ever one where...where we all lived, and Jefferson was gone?" asked Rachel.

_No. There's not. Maybe there are things we can't fix. Maybe we're not meant to all be happy._

_And if it's down to you, Chloe? If Rachel and Max look to you, or if whatever this is happens in a way that gives the difficult choice to you for once, who will you pick? Save Max but let Rachel die? Save Rachel but lose Max? Save them both and lose them both to fucking Jefferson?_

"I don't know," said Max, breaking Chloe out of her thoughts. "Maybe. It's hard to remember everything."

"And what about Arcadia Bay? Or your Dad?" asked Rachel. "It can't...it can't just be up to us to make this kind of decision!"

Chloe turned to Max, and saw a lifetime's worth of choices reflected in her eyes. Max wiped her tears away with the back of her hand before she looked at Rachel. "Sometimes we have to make them anyway."

"You better not fucking make me decide, Max Caulfield. I'm not letting either of you die."

"And I'm not letting either of you die," said Max.

Rachel shrugged, laughing in a slightly deranged way. "Same here."

"Well," said Chloe, "that settles it. Universe, you can go fuck yourself. None of us are dying."

* * *

Chloe Price stood high above Arcadia Bay, underneath the churning darkness of some great storm, her back against the lighthouse. Chloe Price, girlfriend to both Max Caulfield and Rachel Amber, punk and loser and brilliant student and apocalypse maiden. The saved and the savior.

_Time to fuck up time itself._

_Hell yes._

She reached out with both hands, feeling the cool kiss of the rain on her arms. Rachel Amber took her left hand, weak but straining hard, hungry, needing. Max Caulfield took her right, her touch tender, familiar. Rachel and Max looked at each other, a thousand thoughts unspoken between them, and grasped hands.

The sound of thunder boomed around them. Max looked to Rachel, then to Chloe, her eyes shining only slightly with fear. Mostly, Chloe saw hope in them, the clearing of a path long left broken and unpassable. Chloe didn't know what was happening, and Rachel likely didn't either, but Max believed in this, whatever it was. The three of them, cursed and blessed and intertwined in thousands of lives, reached out for the power, bright blue and red.

"On three, we rewind," said Max. Rachel nodded, and so did Chloe. The storm sang around them, waves crashing far beneath. The town huddled in the distance, blissfully unaware of the destruction it had once underwent, in some other, more vivid, time.

"One," Max whispered. The wind blew her hair around her face, determined, brave, terrified.

"Two." Rachel shivered in the cold. Hurt and angry and lost in memories of her own death, but alive. Like Chloe. Like Max. Like the town.

"Three."

She felt the electricity before she saw it. Smelt the faint black smell of burning wood and ash. Bright white, yellow, and blue. So much blue. Pressure in her head, the breaking of a thousand lifetimes, and the brilliant sound of thunder, echoing forever. The lighthouse snapped, and the earth shuddered, and the three of them tumbled through the gap in reality.


	21. Interlude: Mine Enemy Has More Power

A dense forest, with an expansive TREE. A RAVEN perches on a branch. A DEER feeds on grass at its roots.

[Enter PROSPERA.]

PROSPERA (to audience): My friends, we have been far apart too long.

The three our story weaves itself around

have found themselves together at long last,

and called on pow'rs unknown even now.

They hope for an escape from floods and fires,

from each timeline collapsing on itself.

Alas, I cannot justify their hope.

I've failed them far too oft to count.

[PROSPERA stares STAGE RIGHT, and sighs.]

PROSPERA: For when I first gave pow'r over time,

To save the girl from dying deep below

She lived and loved, but could not run from doubt.

She poisn'd her heart and rent her world in two.

Another spark of hope snuffed out for good,

Another mark of doom on humankind.

Could they not even find a little grace

With master'y o'er the onward march of time?

A fool I'd be to give a second chance,

Better for all to stay and brood alone,

Consider myst'ries greater than your ken.

RAVEN: (caws)

PROSPERA: Yet…

My heart cried out to see such love dissolve.

I told myself I'd give them one more chance.

My powr's flowed from wind and rain to earth

and blossomed in young Max's fragile care.

Love grew in ground too tilled with sorrow's touch,

And hope, it seemed, would last the endless storm.

RAVEN: (caws)

PROSPERA: Oh do be quiet, I'll get to you eventually.

RAVEN: (nods)

PROSPERA: But human hands are weak, and often crush

that which they try to hold so close and safe.

My great experiment went up in flames.

Again, I tried, again, and still, again,

And soon the three charted their paths alone.

I watched, my bated breath in weary lungs,

and hoped for what I knew impossible.

PROSPERA: I must confess to you: I love them all,

So brave, and strong, and young, and doomed; all three.

Some god, am I, to roll their dice for sport,

To drink their tears like wine, so sweet and strong.

I nev'r shall know depths of souls like theirs,

sitting alone upon my distant isle.

RAVEN: [flies away]

PROSPERA: Do not pretend yourself so clean and pure!

Have you not watched for reasons such as mine?

Do you not gaze upon their struggles still,

in hopes of feeling just a bit of what they do?

Do you not come for tales of all that they

could do in countless alternate paths?

Call me damned monster for all my sins,

but give yourselves the name as well. For both

you and I bonded by this love.

[Enter RACHEL, MAX, and CHLOE from Below.]

PROSPERA: So here they come, our tragic young playthings,

Back to the world from which their home was sprung.

So long before man said 'Arcadia'

And claimed this spot to build and live and die.

Perhaps they'll find an answer here, some way

To build a better world for all of them.

A better soul than I would put them down

Before suff'ring ensnares them, as it shall.

But I will not.

Prospera is a fool who dares to hope

That this shall be the end of our long search,

That 'gainst the tempest mad and terrible,

These three shall forge a path to victory.

[PROSPERA beckons to the audience.]

PROSPERA: Give me your hands and still the show shall play,

One final act, in chapters four, to see

if they can prove me wrong or right in this;

Humanity shall endlessly repeat

its sins upon the innocent and young,

And they in turn shall never find respite

without some greater horror unleashed upon

another soul.

There is no better world for all three of them.

[CHLOE, MAX, and RACHEL appear beneath the TREE. RACHEL and MAX awaken. CHLOE still sleeps.]

RACHEL: So where are we?

MAX: I don't know. This isn't what I…

RACHEL: You don't know? I thought all this time travel shit was your idea!

MAX: It's not that easy! It's usually always just time that moves, not a place. Chloe? Wake up.

PROSPERA (unseen): Awake, dear heart, awake!

CHLOE: Ugh.

MAX: Are you okay?

CHLOE: I don't know. All my parts are still here, I think.

RACHEL: Your hair…

CHLOE: Oh fuck, did all my hair come off?

MAX: No, it's-

RACHEL: Blue.

CHLOE: Oh. I thought it was gonna be something fucked up. You two are freaking me out.

RACHEL: We don't know where we are. Max led us somewhere else.

MAX: I didn't do anything! We should just be where we were…

CHLOE: Guys.

RACHEL: This is too much…

MAX: No one else had any ideas!

CHLOE: Guys!

RACHEL and MAX: What?

CHLOE: Look. See anything familiar?

RACHEL: Fuck.

MAX: It's…Arcadia Bay. The…the bay, but not…

RACHEL: The town's just…trees. It's gone.

MAX: No, it's…

CHLOE: It hasn't been built yet.

END SCENE


	22. This Isle is Full of Noises

On the first night, they slept on the beach beneath an impossibly starry sky. The woods around them – the woods that would one day become the roads and buildings of Arcadia Bay, Oregon, United States – rustled in the darkness, teeming with unseen life. The water lapped against the sand like breath; constant, calming, ominous.

None of them had expected to be sent this far back. Chloe wasn't sure what Max or Rachel had expected, but she was pretty sure it wasn't this. Every time she thought she understood the rules of the time travel powers that connected all three of them, something changed. She couldn't decide whether that's just how magic worked, or if it was intentional, the will of something else out there that had given them the powers.

After the initial confusion and shouting, they'd fallen into a mostly quiet rhythm of setting up a place to keep warm and safe. At night, out in the Pacific Northwest air, the temperatures dropped low, and a layer of mist hovered over the rich green grass and brown earth. They were most assuredly not alone, but none of them knew whether anything in the woods would be so bold as to attack these strangers. All they had to defend themselves with was Chloe's switchblade. She'd only ever used it in violence once – that she could remember – to scare off an attempted mugging in the timeline where she lived with Rachel. That's where this body was from, technically. She was lucky she still had it.

They'd piled together a fire and managed to get it lit with Chloe's lighter; between the three of them and their multiple branching memories, they had enough experience with outdoor survival skills to manage that much. Rachel and Chloe had been carrying their backpacks of supplies when they all rewound together, so dinner was a granola bar each, with a bag of pretzels to pass around. When they talked, it was soft, quiet observations, or either Max or Chloe checking in on the still-injured Rachel. None of them raised the obvious, but Chloe knew what they were all thinking.

_Time travel only goes backwards for us. We might be stuck here._

Rachel fell asleep in her wheelchair, tucked beneath a thin blanket she'd packed in her bag. In that night that was both strangely quiet and yet teeming with the sounds of life, Max and Chloe lay next to the fire, feeding it while looking out into the bay and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Chloe poked the embers with a long stick, watching the sparks float upward like fireflies. Out in the darkness, the ocean seemed to stretch on forever, until the waters fell off the edges of time.

"I bet there's whales out there, right now. Way more than in our time."

"Totally."

"Maybe other things too. Sea monsters and shit."

"I'd believe it."

Chloe closed her eyes, just listening to the sounds of the water, the crackling fire, the rustling leaves. An animal cried out somewhere far away, its voice echoing down the bay. She tried to summon a sense of fear, but it was too peaceful here, too right. Despite all the danger, being with Max and Rachel together, all three of them alive and remembering, felt good. She could still feel the embers of her anger at Max, at the lie of her not using her powers, of the burden of who-knew how many Max's all fighting each other just to be with her, but all her hurt and anger felt like coals tossed into the ocean. Nothing in the face of Max being there with her, after all of this.

_I can never stay angry at her. Even when I probably should. She feels too much like home. Like what home should feel like, like home almost never did._

"Max?"

"Yeah, Chloe?"

"I know we're dealing with some hella scifi shit, with all our memories or whatever, and it's confusing enough for me, but you've been through way more. Timelines, I mean."

"I guess, yeah."

"Any particularly good ones? Or weird ones? I just have a few."

"Oh." Max turned towards Chloe, propping her head up with one hand. "A greatest hits, would you say?"

Chloe grinned. "Yeah, give me the greatest hits. I wanna know what I've been missing."

Max took a deep breath. "Honestly most of them weren't great. But I do remember one time – this was a…I guess, 'branch', off of when we went back and made our younger lives better – where you went to college and I stayed behind. I came and visited you a ton. We got really drunk with your friends, and then, when we'd sobered up a bit, we climbed on the roof of the basketball arena. It was snowing."

Chloe let the scene play out, as if it were a movie being projected onto the darkness before her. "We made out up there, didn't we?"

"Yeah. It was nice."

"Sounds nice. And I had friends?"

"A couple of them. They were pretty cool." She laughed suddenly. "But I was the closest to goth out of all of you."

She remembered Max then, her dyed black hair and black fingernails, the strange twist of fate that turned shy bookish Max into one happier with her own life, but more pessimistic at the same time.

"I think I had a pretty good hipster look going on. Looks like we're still hot even if we switch styles."

Max didn't respond. Her face danced in and out of shadow, lit by the flames. She looked worried.

"Hey, Earth to Max? You still with me?"

"Sorry. Just tired."

"Can't hide from me, remember? I've had a long time to learn how to read you like a book. Not that I…read books."

"It's just…" Max hugged her legs tight. "What if we can't…"

"I don't know. We've been through so much weird shit, and I can sort of remember all of it, but this has got to be the weirdest shit of all. I'm expecting to see a dinosaur or something any minute now."

Max smiled. "I don't think we're that far back."

"How do you know?"

"The plants. They're beautiful, but they're not, you know, huge. Like they were in dinosaur times. I don't see any giant dragonflies or whatever."

"Oh. Well, all the young Chloe's I've been would've fucking loved to see a dinosaur. But…maybe it's a good thing we're too late for them. I don't think my knife would be enough."

"You'd put up a good fight."

Chloe felt the knife in her jacket, and pulled it out. With a flick, it opened, the steel glinting in the firelight.

_Damon Merrick tossing her aside. Nathan Prescott's gun up against her stomach._

"Out of all of us, I'd probably put up the least of a fight."

"That's so not true."

"Really? You weren't there, but I've seen Rachel go after an actual criminal with a piece of wood, and you…well, you've…"

"Killed someone."

Chloe nodded. She poked at the hearth of the fire again. This time less sparks came up. She tossed the branch into the flames. The fire flared up again, reflecting in Max's eyes. Rachel breathed softly, asleep behind them.

"You killed someone. Yeah, but he fucking deserved it."

"I killed a lot more people than just Jefferson."

"Not this again, Max."

"No, it's okay. This thing with multiple realities…Chloe, it's really weird, but it's sort of helped, and sort of didn't? It's comforting to know that in that other timelines, I didn't destroy the town, that people are still alive and happy there. But all those timelines…they don't stop existing. They keep going. I can remember – just barely, like a dream – all those timelines were you died and I had to keep going. In the bathroom, in the train tracks, at the junkyard…those Max's still exist, or did exist for a while at least." She looked at Chloe. In the fading firelight, only the bottom half of her face was visible. "When I learned about these timelines, I thought that it meant that nothing really mattered. But I think it just makes everything count even more."

"I buy that," said Chloe. She shifted closer, moving her leg around to touch Max's. "I don't get any of this, but it makes as much sense as anything else. Everything counts all the time. All the good and all the bad. We've got to accept both. None of them cancel out the other."

Max nodded slowly, and no one spoke for several minutes. Finally, she looked back at Chloe again.

"Accept both."

"Max?"

"I know we're seriously in trouble, and we've got way more important things to worry about, but…"

"Yeah?"

"Are we…what are we, now? I know things were bad between us, and then we saw the other timeline and things got better, but now you're…you're with Rachel in this timeline. Or something like that."

There was the question. Chloe couldn't help glancing back at Rachel. She looked like she was still asleep, and her soft, slow breathing confirmed it. Unless she was acting.

Chloe didn't know what to answer. None of them were the same as they used to be, even after all the events that started this all off, back in the timeline she still tried to convince herself was the "original." She'd loved Rachel, she knew that, knew that as much as she knew everything. And she'd loved Max, maybe from the beginning. But she'd also felt the frayed and wounded edges of both of their love; how Rachel would never truly be hers, and how Max might be too much of hers. Longing and suffocation, both. She remembered a life where she ran off with Rachel and never really reconnected with Max. She remembered a life where her and Max were together from a young age and she never really connected with Rachel. But what if she and Rachel had stayed in Arcadia Bay, had stayed together, and then Max came back into her life? That wasn't one of the timelines she'd experienced.

Half of her wondered if she couldn't try with them both, but she doubted that polyamory was Max's style. To be honest, it wouldn't probably work on her end, either.

It was an impossible choice.

_Not another of those fucking impossible choices._

"I don't know, Max," she said, not looking over the flames to see Max's expression. "I love you. As my best friend, and…more. But things are really fucking confusing. Let's get out of this and then talk about it, okay?"

"Yeah, of course." There was only a hint of sadness in her voice.

Eventually, Max turned away and fell asleep, or at least tried to. Chloe held out longer, keeping watch, though she wasn't sure what she'd do if some mountain lion or bear came out to kill them. They could still rewind, but that was only so useful.

Soon, Max began snoring softly, her quiet voice falling almost in opposite rhythm to Rachel's. Chloe stared out into the forest until the last embers of the fire died. White eyes stared back for just a moment before vanishing into the brush.

* * *

"I'll say it if nobody else will," Rachel said, early the next morning. Max and Chloe had taken turns guarding Rachel and collecting firewood, and now they were washing their faces in the bay water.

"Why are we here? And how are we getting back?"

Chloe looked at Max, who stared back with only a moment of fear. Soon it was gone, replaced by something more resolute. "I don't know. We were all together and we all used the power, so it must be important that we're here."

"Why? Why does this have to mean anything? What if we just fucked up time and now we're back at the beginning?"

Max wiped the water out of her face with a shoulder. "Because Chloe and I have been here before."

"What?" said Chloe and Rachel at the same time.

"Remember, right after it started flooding, after the storm? When we went into that weird place out of time, with the lighthouse?"

_Shadows in the trees. A thousand photos, a thousand worlds._

"Yeah, but that's not the same thing as this. There's no lighthouse, we're not out of time, we're just hella far back in it!"

Max spread her arms wide. "Look at all of this! This huge forest? The bay? It's just like it looked there. The only thing different was the lighthouse. A bit of the time we came from, and a bit of the beginning. Here. This is where everything started."

"Everything?"

"Arcadia Bay. The power. Us. It's all rooted right here. I know it! Don't you see? We just…we just have to figure out how."

_She's lost it. We're all just scrambling to have some hope, but it's a lie. We're trapped here. None of us can hunt. We're going to starve soon, lost in some other time. Other versions of us will keep going, but we're going to die._

It was easy to believe those thoughts. Chloe had seen enough to learn that most people's hope never resulted in anything. The world was more full of Jeffersons than anything else, people and systems who preyed on hope and innocence, who wanted to watch it crumble, just like they'd had their own hope crumbled. It wasn't realistic otherwise. It was stupid, earnest, naïve. Childish.

Chloe Price had hoped when she was young, than her father died. She'd hoped when she met Rachel, and then she left her, and died. She'd hoped when she found Max, but then it cost so much. She'd betrayed her, lied to her, and killed for her. And now they were here. The latest in a long line of collapsing timelines. Each one more pointless than the next.

It was easy to believe that.

_Trust her. You have to trust her._

_Everybody lies. You can't say she doesn't. You know both of them do._

_Yeah, Max lied to me. She fucked up. She's fucked up a lot. But so have I. All three of us have done some truly awful shit. Nobody could understand._

_You're right. You should just stay here, wait it out a couple days 'til you starve. You'll do the rest of time a favor._

She caught Max's glance.

I'll always do this, won't I? Second guess myself. Assume the worst of everyone so I don't get hurt. I can't stop being the Chloe who does that, even though I've been other Chloe's too. I still remember. She's still me. But if I keep doing that…nothing happens. All of this goes to shit. Whether it's a good thing or not, Max loves me. Fuck it, let's try trust.

"Okay, Max. This is the beginning. What now?"

Max beamed. "I don't know. Ha! I don't know. But we're here, and we're alive, and that's better than all the other timelines, right? All of us, here. We just need to find what started all of this."

"And how do we do that?"

Max stretched her hands out wide. "We go exploring!"

* * *

Chloe pushed aside the branch of a low, leafy bush, swatting a mosquito with one hand. They'd been wandering the woods around the coast for hours, hoping for some sign of what they should do next.

She was tired, and dirty, and hungry, or, less hungry than worried at the very soon possibility that she'd be starving. They were almost out of snack rations, and none of them knew how to hunt. Surviving in the woods was way easier in those kids' books.

She was still cursing the bugs under her breath when she looked up at the new clearing, the late afternoon sun reflecting off the layer of mist rising from the grass. She held up a hand to her forehead, blocking the light from her eyes, and gasped.

It was the biggest tree she'd ever seen, at least outside of strange dreams and visions. Assuming this whole adventure wasn't one of those. Its branches swept upward, coating the whole surrounding part of the forest in dappled shade. Gnarled roots spread around like the curling fingers of some giant. Everything smelled fresh and alive, more than she'd ever remembered experiencing before. Though, something in it reminded her of home, not her specific house but the concept of the home, the sense she felt when she kissed Rachel out under the streetlamp, or when she'd curled under the covers in the hotel with Max, or when she'd sat around the couch with her family and Max opening presents on Christmas. She inhaled deep.

"Guys, I found something!"

A few moments later, Rachel emerged from the brush, Max pushing her wheelchair from behind. Chloe grinned at the way their faces lit up. Max pushed Rachel's wheelchair up next to Chloe, then took a step closer to the tree, a hand reaching towards it.

"Wowser."

"You said it."

Rachel said nothing, but she craned her neck back and stared, open-mouthed.

"This didn't survive to our time," said Chloe. "Would've been, I don't know, a thing in town."

"I can't believe someone would cut this down," said Max, her fingers tracing the thick bark of the tree.

Chloe remembered the tearing, roaring sound of trees going up in flames, or being snapped by the storm. "A storm probably wrecked it. Or something like that."

Max almost didn't seem to hear. She fell to a knee and pulled out her camera from her bag.

Rachel seemed incredulous. "She's taking pictures?"

Chloe put a hand on her shoulder. "It's just something she does."

They watched in silence while Max took a few pictures of the tree. For some, she leaned in close to the tangle of thick roots, as if she was looking for some kind of message hidden in the whorls of bark. For another picture, she stepped further away, low to the ground, and aimed up high. The click of the instant camera threw Chloe back into memory. So many Max's, so many experiences and times. All of them blended into one Max, this Max, this one who'd been through everything, lived to see all the possible outcomes of all her choices, who'd come out the other side both still in love with Chloe, and oddly certain of what they had to do.

"Help me up?" asked Rachel, beside her. She was already trying to push herself out of the chair, grimacing but determined.

"I'm not sure you should…"

"I am. Help me up."

Chloe offered an arm, and Rachel grabbed for it like a drowning woman clutching at a raft. Her grip was tight. Slowly, her hand pressing into Chloe's skin, she pulled herself out of the wheelchair onto shaking legs. She wasn't looking at Chloe, or Max, or even the tree. Her eyes were narrowed, determined, staring only at her feet beneath her.

_She's this hurt because of me. I can't let her…_

_Her dad didn't want her getting hurt, and look what happened. You can't stop Rachel Amber from doing what she wants._

Rachel leaned against her, breathing heavily, sweat pooling on her forehead. Another step. This close, her body pressed against her, Chloe could hear Rachel's heartbeat. She swallowed tears at the thought of Rachel's heartbeat. It meant she was alive. That would never stop being amazing. She would never stop be amazing.

Another step. Another step. Another step.

Her hand loosened its grip on Chloe's arm.

"Doing okay?" Chloe asked, her voice soft.

"Better. Being here…helps, I think." She flashed a smile. Even without makeup, her face pale and tired, bags under her eyes, Chloe still felt it in her chest. That little drop. Butterflies.

"Do you still need me?"

She didn't know why she said it that way. She meant, 'do you still need me to help you walk?' but somehow it came out differently. Rachel still had that effect on her.

Rachel gave her a sad smile, then let go of her arm. She was still standing. Another step. Another step.

Ahead, Max lowered her camera as Rachel walked past her, determined. Above them, the wind danced in patterns that were almost visible. Fallen leaves floated in spirals. The enormous tree's branches swayed with a gentle, reassuring sound. A raven cawed in the distance.

And in the orange and red light of that ancient evening, all three of them stood underneath the beautiful, enormous, strange tree at the heart of Arcadia Bay. All of them drowning in memories of multiple lives, all of them died and damned in some other world.

But not here. Here, if nowhere else, they were alive.

That has to be enough.

* * *

When another hour passed and nothing momentous happened, they decided to camp at the base of the tree for the night. Chloe filled their water bottles from a nearby creek, then switched places with Max, who left to gather firewood. Rachel sat on the ground, her back resting against the tree, resting. Her stomach rumbled audibly.

Chloe left the half-arranged fire pit she'd been working on and walked closer to the tree. "Feeling any better?"

Rachel smiled, almost despite herself. "Yes. I'd almost say my healing is supernatural." She furrowed her eyebrows in mock seriousness. "But I don't believe in anything of the sort."

"Of course not. Nothing strange here. Just a regular day in Old Arcadia Bay."

They were both quiet, listening to the bugs chirp and the birds squawk. So much life, even in the darkness. A brave new world.

"Chloe?" Rachel touched her on the arm. "Can we talk?"

"Uh, sure. About what?"

Rachel half-shrugged. "I don't know. Anything other than time travel. I'm feeling pretty bleak about those prospects right now."

"Fair." She slumped down next to her, both of them resting their backs against the enormous tree. Above them, they could see the branches and the leaves sway. It felt almost reassuring, like they were under a blanket, reading comic books with a flashlight when they were supposed to be asleep. Like they'd be protected from anything.

"It's kinda nice here," Chloe said. "We might get eaten by wolves, but hey, at least there aren't other people to be loud and shitty and annoying."

"It's a nice vacation, but I don't think I could live like this forever. Could you?"

"Fuck, I don't know. I mean, I talk a big game about hating everyone, because I mostly do, but…I would miss electricity. And the internet. And beer."

"Exactly. It's beautiful and peaceful, but that's…that's not enough."

_Max would disagree. Hell, maybe I disagree?_

"Why not?"

Rachel tugged her blanket tighter, and leaned her head against Chloe's shoulder. It felt like old times, and it felt unreal. So many memories in her head screaming that Rachel was gone, and here she was. A miracle.

"What about your dreams? Your goals?"

Chloe snorted. "Goals?"

"I don't know, life accomplishments? Making art, or seeing the world, or having a family, or saving the whales or something. Making a difference. Mattering."

_Saving lives. Chloe Price doesn't do that. Others die so she can live._

"After all of this, I just want to be alive and…and happy." She took a deep breath of air cleaner than she'd ever tasted. "Anything else is a bonus."

_God, I need a smoke._

Underneath her, Rachel shifted slightly, raising her eyes to meet Chloe's. "And everyone said I was the romantic in the relationship. You're the real thing, Chloe Price."

Suddenly she felt very warm. Very conscious of Rachel so close to her, of her smell, of the feel of her hair against her skin. She swallowed.

"I don't know if any of this shit is real, Rachel. Me more than anything."

A few silent moments passed. Fireflies blinked in the wide expanse around them. With her head leaned back towards the sky, it was hard to tell which bright lights were fireflies and which were stars.

_A night, years ago, in Rachel's room, looking up at the fake stars she'd cast on the ceiling. Beautiful, even if they were fake versions of dead lights. They meant something to two young girls, holding each other together, dreaming of desperate attempts at love. They meant something still._

"Remember the night after the Tempest? After everything with your dad?"

"I remember that night more than most nights, Chloe."

"Oh. Yeah. I was just thinking…when we looked at those stars in your room, and you said that they were lies, that the light we were seeing was already dead."

"Yeah."

"Maybe the stars that made those lights are alive here, somewhere in the distance. I don't know when we are, but it's possible, right?"

She'd never seen so many stars. Not in nights in the woods when she was a kid, not even in the empty stretches of Nevada desert Max and her had used as their storm testing ground. Thousands, millions of lights, like diamonds burning in the sky.

"I'm not an astronomer, so I'm going to choose to believe that you're right. They're still alive, here."

"And all of this, all of the…sorry, the time travel and the multiple realities…they still exist. Like even in the timelines when we're…without you and me…we're alive too. Just, somewhere else."

"I don't know if that makes anything easier."

"Me neither. But I'm gonna choose to think that it does. Even if we never leave here, there's some Rachel and Chloe out there in L.A., back when things were…when things were good."

Rachel's hand was in hers, suddenly. She squeezed it tight.

"Or they're better entirely."

"Yeah. Somewhere better."

Rachel leaned in closer, shifting herself to fit against Chloe in a way she remembered vividly. She could feel the faint beat of Rachel's heart, pounding fast. She let the images flash in her head, all of Rachel radiant and electric and alive, hair fanning behind her, eyes daring her to come closer, to taste her, to hold her, even if she knew it would always be temporary.

She pushed herself away – no, she thought she was pushing herself away, but somehow Rachel's face was turned up and she could feel her hot breath on her, and they were kissing, hands tangled in hair, breath low and fast, and…

Footsteps in the grass.

_Max._

Chloe pulled away as Rachel breathed out a long, low breath. Max's face was bright red for a moment before she turned away.

"Ah, sorry…"

"Max, wait!"

"I've got to…go get more…f-firewood," Max said, running back into the woods, haphazardly scattering the wood she'd been carrying around her. She wiped her face with her sleeve as she vanished into the darkness.

"Shit. Shit. Fuck." Chloe ran her fingers through her hair.

Rachel looked away. "I'm sorry."

_She's not sorry. She knew what she was doing._

_You knew what you were doing. You know what it feels like to fall back into her._

The last remnants of sunlight were fading before them, as the red sky lowered like an eye closing. And Max was out there in the woods, alone. She thought everything between them was fine, or getting there. Now she knows better.

"This is so fucked up."

"Chloe."

She looked at Rachel, saw the glint of tears in her eyes replaced by a distant, clouded look.

"Go find her."

"Rach…"

"Not now. And yes, if you don't come back I'll rewind."

"But you…"

"I'll be fine. Go."

_Everybody lies._

Chloe swallowed something that had just grown in her throat, and nodded. She crept past the camp, past the strangely comforting reach of the giant tree. She flicked on the flashlight with her left hand and pulled out her pocket-knife with her right.

"Okay, Chloe," she said aloud, whispering to herself. "You got this. They're more afraid of you than you are of them. It's just birds and deer and…and…adorable chipmunks. Nothing else. Max wouldn't have gone far. She's upset, and she's probably close, just follow the footsteps."

She swiveled her flashlight towards the ground. Dirt and leaves and roots and grass.

_Why can't life be more like D &D? If I was a ranger I could track this. Wish one of us remembered wilderness survival training or something. I mean, so many timelines and none of them became post-apocalyptic?_

Swearing under her breath, she swept past the unreadable signs of Max, and turned towards something she was better at.

"Max! Max! Come on, it's dark. It's…uh, not what it looks like."

_Wow, you pulled that one?_

"Okay, bad choice of words. Max! Come on, it's dark!"

The woods teemed with noises, rustling and croaking, hissing and whispering. Each step crushed plant life underneath, snapped twigs or squelched mud. Mist clung to her ankles as she pushed her way deeper into the darkness. Occasionally the moon shone through a gap in the leaves, illuminating small animals that scurried away at Chloe came crashing into view.

"Max, I'm getting really freaked out now. If you're gonna give me a jump scare, you should go ahead and do it now, I deserve it."

The knife in her hand was slick with sweat. "On second thought, don't try to surprise me, I've got a knife and I don't think you wanna get stabbed. Hell of an ironic way to go."

A bird screeched in the night. Waves crashed somewhere in the distance.

"Max, I'm sorry. I'm tired, and hungry, and I feel like shit. It's hard, being with both of you at the same time. I mean, it's great, but it's really fucking weird. I love you, but…there are parts of me that love her too. We definitely need a good long serious feelings talk about it, but maybe not while we're starving in Jurassic Park? C'mon Max, I need you!"

Something large thudded a few yards to her left, breathing loudly.

"Max?"

With the knife in one hand, she slowly turned towards the noise. She swiveled the flashlight around to illuminate bright white eyes, an open mouth, thick fur and claws, looming above her on two feet. Her heart spiked, and she dropped the flashlight.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck," she screamed, running in the opposite direction, crashing through the brush, feeling sticks swipe small cuts on her face, feeling her feet sink into mud, feeling spiderwebs coat her stomach. A low rumbling roar came from behind.

Her ankle banged into something hard, and she fell, sprawling into a pile of mud. She reached out a hand, anything to stabilize herself, and felt nothing, and she began tumbling headfirst down the slope until she felt herself smack against a heavy tree trunk and grow still. The brush up above snapped, and a low sniffing echoed down. She tried to open her eyes, but felt sick immediately, and closed them again.

_If I don't move, it can't see me._

_That's not true and you know it._

After a desperate few minutes of hoping Rachel or Max would rewind and discovering that she hadn't moved in time nor space, Chloe pulled herself up out of the heap. She was bleeding in multiple places, and felt sore on her ankles, her chin, and her leg, which felt strangely stunned. She'd gotten beaten up pretty badly in a few other timelines, but that was at least a little expected. She couldn't see anything in the darkness, and when she held both hands to her temples, she realized she wasn't holding her knife anymore. But she knew where it was.

Lodged into the side of her left leg.

"Shit. Fuck." She let out something halfway between a laugh and a wheeze. "Wait 'til Max hears about this. Got into a knife fight with a goddamn bear."

Now that she was aware of it, the pain spiked. She limped to the tree she'd crashed into, and cautiously probed at the parts of her leg away from the knife. She couldn't touch any bit for too long, as it sent ripples of pain through the rest of her. She felt bile in her throat.

"Take it out? Leave it in? I know…it's one of those…"

A cloud passed over the moon, and everything settled into shadows. She felt her eyelids lower, then shook her head. She slapped her forehead.

"Can't pass out, Price, I know that much. Okay, pull out or leave in…"

_Rachel Amber in the backseat of her car, blood pouring from a knife wound._

"Leave it in! Otherwise I'll bleed out. That's one down, Dr. Price. Next question: how long can I be like this without things getting into really-fucked-up territory?"

She wasn't sure what she feared worse: an infected knife wound, or some animal coming sniffing around for easy prey.

"Max! Rachel! Help!" she shouted, her voice only a little shaky. She heard the pitiful echo of her words drift away in seconds.

She reached out a hand, mimicking what Max and Rachel had always done to rewind time. Together they'd rewound time enough to go back to before they were born, defying all the laws of time travel they knew. Surely she had enough of it to do this. She'd still probably be hurt, but at least it would be bright out. She strained, feeling for that head-pounding red and blue light.

Nothing.

"Shit, doesn't this qualify as a life-threatening moment for my powers to activate?" She laughed bitterly. "Great, so I can only use my powers when I'm holding hands with my girlfriends. Fucking brilliant. That'll teach me to rely on others. Jesus."

It hurt to talk, but she needed to hear something human. She thought she could hear the shifting bulk of something large in the brush where she had come from, but it was hard to tell. Her breath came fast, and blood hammered in her ears. The pain, when it surfaced, broke all other thoughts.

"Max! Rachel! Rewind, please!"

_Maybe they already rewound. Isn't that how it works? When they make a new branch in time, their consciousness travels in one timeline, but wouldn't that leave another body behind, a clone, basically, that time travel doesn't work for?_

"What if that's me?" she whispered. "Fuck, I'm going to die here." She sobbed, letting the tears out for the first time in a long time. "You finally got me, time. Hell of a fucking way to die." The knife stayed lodged into her leg, keeping her from looking at anything else. Taunting her.

"Chloe, get a hold of yourself. Remember your training."

David towered above her, a gun at his side. He shimmered, as if behind a burning flame.

"David?"

"You keep telling me you're worth a damn. I don't see it. Giving up without even trying. Typical."

"Hey, fuck you!"

He grinned. "That's your mother's job."

With a roar, Chloe pushed herself up, ready to claw out David's eyes, but he was gone. Her leg still hurt like hell, but for a moment she'd forgotten about it.

"Fuck, we're in the hallucination part of this, huh. Alright, time weirdness, I'm ready. Bring it on." She cracked her neck and breathed out low. The moonlight bathed the clearing in just enough light to make out the looming shadow of the knife jutting out of her leg. She tried not to think about infections, or doctors sawing off legs.

"Rachel walked after getting in a car crash. A knife's fucking nothing. I've already died a bunch, and even that didn't kill me. One step at a time."

She moved her good leg. "Okay, okay, not bad, not bad."

Then, the bad. She felt a knife of flame stabbing her again, and she cried out. She caught herself from falling down again, but only barely.

"Pain is an illusion," said David, crouching in the brush, painted in greens and browns. "A man controls his pain. You decide what hurts you."

"Bullshit. I didn't decide to fall on my own fucking knife."

"I think you did. You're lost and confused, and so you'd rather hurt yourself than make a decision. You cannot hesitate in war. You'll die."

She lurched towards him, panting with every movement of her wounded leg. "I don't give a shit about your fucking war, or your fucking advice. You didn't deserve to live while everybody else died."

"I could say the same for you."

Chloe swung a fist where his head had been, but it hit only leaves. His laugh echoed further up the hill where she'd fallen.

"I know," she grunted, her legs and arms shaking, the pain nearly doubling her over, "what you're doing." Another step, another spike of pain. Another step, another spike of pain. "You're obvious."

"Subtlety's not my specialty."

She pushed herself forward, always one step behind David, dragging her leg along after her, ignoring the sticky wet blood trickling down into the grass. All sense of time faded, and for years she put one leg in front of the other, hands and feet sinking into wet dirt, screaming out into the woods to scare anything away. Somewhere in the back of her head, where thoughts still happened, she wondered why Max wasn't here, even as she found Max's bag with her camera still inside, even as the moon rose and almost fell, even as she looked up at where David had been only to see the familiar sight of the giant tree they'd camped beneath, swaying slightly in the morning breeze.

And beneath it, an empty wheelchair, and Rachel's bag sitting atop it.

"Rachel?"

Her only answer was the chattering noises of the woods waking up.

"Rachel? Where are you?"

_Where did she go? What happened? She got up and went to piss, right? No, she left everything here. Max is gone, Rachel is gone, she'd been eaten, she'd been kidnapped, she died, she fell through a hole in time and she's gone, they're all gone, they've all left me, they're gone, they're really gone now, finally gone, all of them gone, they're all gone…_

Focus, Chloe.

"Max! Rachel!" She shouted, not caring if anything or anyone heard. They were not going to die, not here, not while she was still alive and still had a way of fighting back. She'd pull the knife out and fight with it if she had to. She'd claw, she'd bite, anything to keep them safe. Let them live to fall in love with another Chloe. It would be worth it.

She screamed for what felt like another hour. No response.

She slumped down on Rachel's wheelchair. In the early dawn, she could see the knife clearly, and the thick dark blood caked around it. Everything in her screamed that she needed food, and sleep, and more than anything, medical attention. And yet she silenced those voices.

_Where are they?_

A raven perched in the branches of the tree above her, and hopped from one foot to the other as she approached.

"I'm not dead yet."

The raven cawed.

"I know, I know, I should be, but I'm not. Not yet."

It cocked its head.

"I know you're smart for a bird, and that you don't understand me at all, but I think you know what's going on. Mind giving a girl a hint?"

_I've lost my mind. I'm talking to a bird._

The raven cawed again, then leapt from the branch, flying down towards her. She instinctively held up her arm to block her face, when suddenly she felt a soft weight bearing down gently on her. She opened her eyes, and the raven was resting – or hovering really, as she could see this close that it was definitely translucent – on her arm, like a falcon.

It stared at her. The eyes were unrecognizable, the pitch black emptiness of something inhuman. But the smell. The bird smelled like something. Like her mother's eggs and bacon. No, like eggs and bacon and coffee and…and…

Her father. The raven smelled like her father had smelled. His cologne, the simple normal almost imperceptible smell she'd almost forgotten.

"Dad?"

Something shifted into place. A memory, back in one of the branching timelines she remembered, of Max and her in a car, driving away from the wreckage of Arcadia Bay. Talking in the long hours, hurt and in love and scared and exhilarated.

"The deer," Max was saying, "I saw the deer at the junkyard. In my dreams…it was Rachel, trying to tell me what happened. She was leading us to where she was…"

"Max, I don't know…time travel is enough weird shit, I don't believe in ghosts or spirits or whatever."

Max had shrugged, and wiped the beginnings of tears with the back of her hand. "Maybe. But it wasn't a normal deer. Chloe, I've seen some weird things, stuff I haven't talked about. Stuff I don't even know how to talk about. I think the dead might be able to talk to us, in little ways. Like echoes of themselves."

She wasn't sure where that memory had come from, which timeline they'd had that conversation. But there, with the raven on her arm and the memories of her father flooding in, it made sense. As much sense as anything here.

"You've been with me this whole time," she said softly. "I remember. You led me to Rachel…years ago…in the park. And then I dreamed about you."

The raven cawed.

"I'm talking to a bird…I'm talking to a bird…but I time traveled back like thousands of years, so I guess I've done weirder fucking things."

The raven cocked its head, then sidled up closer to her shoulder. It pecked at her hair, lifting up a few strands at a time, almost gently.

"Yeah, not my best look. I think I'm still a blue-haired Chloe at heart." She slowly let herself sit down, and the raven adjusted himself, staying on her arm, looking at her.

"Dad, I'm so tired. I just want one timeline, one reality, where I don't have to worry about it falling apart or whatever. I can deal with problems. Max and Rachel and I can work through our shit. But I don't even know if that's too much to ask. I guess I'd like to not die here, that's the first wish. Can you do that, grant wishes?"

_I'm hallucinating. That's what happens when you lose too much blood. Am I even saying any of this out loud?_

She felt around the edges of the wound, just to see what it would feel like. Another intense shot of pain. Her fingers came back sticky with blood.

"Shit."

Something in her stomach recoiled. She leaned her head back, too quickly. Everything around her swam in a blur of light and color.

_Don't pass out, Chloe. Don't pass out!_

Her head throbbed. The noises of the forest echoed, looping in on themselves like a warped recorder. She thought she could hear voices in the whispers.

The starlight blurred as she stumbled against the tree. The bark felt surprisingly warm, like its arms had been outstretched just to hold her. She closed her eyes to keep from throwing up. Wings flapped above her, followed by the loud cries of many ravens. The voices rose to meet them in some horrifying song.

A shrieking gale of ravens, their voices louder and louder, like metal screeching against metal, like a train forcing itself to stop before she leapt off the tracks, like sparks that start a wildfire, like the loud shock of the gun that killed her. The branches swam above her, like interlocking fingers. She felt sick. She steadied herself against the tree, pressing both hands into the bark. When she pulled back, a bloody handprint shone in the early dawn.

The tree lit up.

Blue light spiraled out from the blood, tracing the whorls of wood up the length of the tree, encircling the branches like snakes. Chloe stumbled back, and felt more knives tear into her. No, not knives. Beaks. The ravens were pecking at her, tearing, screeching, and screaming in hoarse voices. The bright blue light swam around her, the trailing light making strange patterns in the sky like lattice or an intricately woven rope. The light was getting brighter, and she could feel herself bleed from a thousand cuts, feel the wet red blood slide down her arms, her legs, onto the wet ground beneath. The trees roots shivered, uncoiling themselves with loud groans of creaking ancient wood.

A loud crack.

Her head jerked back, and blue light poured out from her eyes, her mouth.

_"It was mine art, when I arrived and heard thee, that made gape the pine and let thee out!"_

* * *

_The roots grow deep. The leaves open wide and far. Butterflies float through the brush, bright blue wings beating in the crisp air. Deer dance in the dappled woods, drinking from a sparkling creek flecked with stones and silver. High above, ravens watch with careful eyes, laughing in their own secret tongues. One day they will steal the fire from the jealous skies._

_The roots grow deep. They pass through dirt and rock, deeper and deeper into the ground, pass the stone remnants of behemoths long dead, past the precious black death that will one day bring humanity to the moon and spell their doom in a single breath of time. Deeper still, they coil around the beating molten heart of the earth, never touching._

_The roots grow deep. Each spreads, then divides, splitting off into other branches, settling into different soil. Some meet resistance. Some are hacked apart, gnawed to bits, splintered into fragments. Others shrivel and die before they reach their destinations. All are part of the tree. All encircle the land._

_The roots grow deep. People live among the forests, among the lesser trees that live under this one's shadow. They hunt and cook and sleep and love and die. The sun and moon chase each other endlessly across the bright blue sky, through the depths of space. The woods burn and grow anew. They foster life of endless variety._

_The roots grow deep. Others come to the woods with death in their hands. The forests are cut down, the animals slaughtered, the natives succumb to disease and wanton murder. The tree feels the pain of so much death, and its light diminishes. In the dark quiet of the night, it grows smaller. Its roots sharpen at the ends._

_The roots grow deep. The newcomers stay and hunt and cook and sleep and love and die, and now more build something, ripped from the woods. The sun and moon continue their chase. The forest is razed again, by metal monsters that belch smoke and consume flames. They pervert the roots, grow their own sprawling, splintering tapestry of concrete and stone. Metal and earth rise, and the humans build a town._

_The roots grow deep. They speak a name to this place, capture it in sounds. But it cannot be captured by their name. Its true name is in the sigh of wind through leaves, in the low song of the whale spinning in the sea, in the bubbling laugh of the river. It will never be their Arcadia Bay._

_The roots grow deep. In the blink of time, they have settled on something, worked their way into the air and the water and the earth of the place the humans call Arcadia Bay. They have watched, curious and wounded, proud and benevolent, at the petty dramas and pointless hates in the concrete trees. So much needless death. And something grows, molded and shaped in the image of people._

_The roots grow deep. They know what the people do not, that this world is only a moment's breath, that even the tree itself is one branch of many. They know that darkness is not unique to their land, that they cannot stop it from consuming everything. They feel the pained gasps of the world entire, and they sink themselves into sorrow and shadow._

_The roots grow deep. A girl dies in a metal cage beneath the earth. The thing the roots have created watches this girl. One small human. One pointless mistake. One of many, and not even the worst. Yet, the thing the roots have made is transfixed. Why should it intervene now? Why not when the killers came with disease and metal and flame? Why not when the trees were razed and rent apart? Why not when the earth first began to feel the rot in its bones?_

_It does not matter. Perhaps they had waited too long. Perhaps they had to bring forth a mind like the ones they watched, first, before they could aid. It does not matter. They reached out to this one, meaningless story, spread a root into the river of time, and gave something of themselves over. A light, blue and bright, to this one girl. Perhaps she could do something with it. Make something…better._

_She lives, now, with this gift. She lives, and flees the town, away from the land the humans called Arcadia Bay. She loves, but it is not enough. In a moment of confusion and despair, she breaks the branch she travels down, and the thing the tree made tries again._

_Another branch, another river, another thread of time. Each splits off again, a flowing, vibrant web of possibilities and pathways. Yet all succumb to rot. The light grows dim. The darkness spreads, and the thing that tree wonders. Why have they all failed? Why has their gift not given them the power necessary? Why do they squander everything, even when they succeed? The thing the tree made finds their failure beautiful, in a way. It recasts them again and again, watches, hoping they will succeed and yet perhaps also hoping they will fail. Their grief and rage and hate is so human, and the thing the tree has made is fascinated and repulsed by the idea of being human. Yet it must try._

_In all its wanderings, there are three most tightly bound in its roots and pathways. The three who have been given this gift. The three who have failed over and over again. The paths cross, the roots curled among themselves, and all three arrive at a beginning. The tree waits. But the roots are twisted, and after so much they are giving way to rot and time. Two of the three drop out, lost in the in-between spaces. But one continues, and offers her blood to the tree, her beating humanity in an outstretched hand._

_And the thing the trees have made reaches back, and pulls her into the flow._


	23. We All Were Sea-Swallow'd

" _Awake, dear heart!"_

The smell of eggs cooking in the kitchen woke her up first. A light breeze played with her hair while a soft light shone through her eyelids. Someone was playing a guitar softly nearby. There was no pain in her leg, no sting of cuts and bruises. She'd never felt a more comfortable bed.

_Where am I?_

She breathed out slowly, turning her face towards the sunlight. The guitar playing stopped and was replaced by footsteps on a wooden floor by her side. Now there were fingers running through her hair gently, and a kiss on her forehead.

She opened her eyes.

Max smiled, the morning light glowing around her. "Morning, sleepyhead. Good dreams?"

_Max? She's…older._

Max kissed her deeply, cupping Chloe's face in her hands. When she finally pulled away, her heart hammering, Chloe let herself glance around the room. This wasn't her room, at least not the one in her house in Arcadia Bay. It was a big upstairs bedroom, with the tall sloped roof of a large cabin or chalet. The wooden walls were covered with framed pictures – tall pines, crystal blue waters, Chloe's silhouette beneath a beach sunset, a family of deer, Rachel in a red gown, Arcadia Bay in snow, a Max selfie. Two desks stood on opposite sides of the room – one with a pile of new clothes and make-up, the other with a glass bong, a stickered laptop, and a loose pile of comic books. The window to her left opened on a valley of verdant green trees and a bright blue sky.

Max had made her way back to a wooden chair by the bedside, and had picked up her guitar again. She closed her eyes, her lips moving as she quietly sung something Chloe couldn't quite place, her long fingers tracing the strings and picking a quiet melody. Chloe stared. She was older, definitely, and she seemed more at home with her body, more confident. Maybe she was in her late twenties?

_Did I…fall into some other timeline?_

She stumbled out of the bed, stepping over piles of hastily tossed clothes. The floor creaked beneath her. A large mirror hung by the desk with the clothes on it, and she paused as she walked past it. Another Chloe stared out at her, one with a nose piercing, and long dark hair with an undercut. Both arms were sleeves of tattoos, and the face that looked back at her was older, at peace.

"Whoa."

Thunder echoed, and for a moment she felt the ocean spray on her face, the smell of a bonfire permeating her clothing. She blinked, and she was back in the room.

"You okay, Chloe?"

"Um, yeah…just, what year is it?"

Max stopped playing. She set the guitar on a stand near the side of the bed. "2022. Is this a trick?"

_2022?_

"Breakfast!"

Her voice came from down the stairs. She knew it immediately, in the marrow of her bones. She'd said the same thing every morning when she spent the night at the Prices, when she'd wake up early to see what Joyce had made for them.

Chloe looked back at Max for any sign of confusion, but she only smiled and stood up.

"Finally, I'm starving!"

She followed Max out of the bedroom, into a lofted upstairs looking down over the tall, open space of a large cabin. Huge windows overlooked a valley of green trees, their tops flecked with snow. Birds flew in formation over them all, their distant noises almost entirely covered by the sounds of cooking. In the kitchen area, lit by the morning light from the windows, stood Rachel Amber. She was wearing an old Firewalk t-shirt and sweatpants, and was dishing out a large pan of scrambled eggs into three plates on the round wooden table.

Max took the plate of eggs from Rachel, kissing her on the cheek. "I think Chloe's a little out of it today."

"She had a long night," Rachel said, laughing. "Firewalk are still great, even if they're old now."

"Just like me," said Max, scooping out the eggs in even portions onto three plates. A huge bowl of hash browns was already in the middle of the team, still warm. Rachel set down a carton of orange juice, then walked past Chloe, wrapping her arms around her and kissing the back of her neck.

"Chloe's the oldest, though. You're what, 28?"

Chloe sat down, her head swimming. "No, I'm…I'm…"

"In her late twenties and getting old so fast," said Max, shaking her head in mock sadness. "Soon we'll have to put in her the old badass ladies' retirement home."

"She'll have to head-bang with Ethel and Gertrude."

"So sad."

She pressed her fingers to her temples, rubbing away the beginnings of a headache. "Sorry, I'm a little confused. How did we…get here? What about the tree?"

Rachel cocked her head. "The tree? The one outside?"

"No, back…back in time." She looked at both of them, then turned to Max. "You saw me kissing Rachel, and you ran away. I'm sorry…"

Max and Rachel looked at each other for a moment, and then leaned in close and kissed each other, long and deeply. When they pulled apart, they were both grinning.

"Chloe, it's okay. We're together. All three of us."

"What?"

Max reached out and grabbed her hand, a look of concern on her face. "Chloe, did you…did you use your powers again?"

"I don't think…"

Rachel took her other hand. "It's okay. We get confused sometimes too. We've got hella memories jumbled around in there. Just take some deep breaths. Remember where you are."

_I'm just blanking…this is real? We did it? I'm with both of them?_

"No. It's not…this is too perfect."

"That's what we say all the time," said Max. "But sometimes life works out. We went through a whole lot, Chloe. But it's over now. We're safe. And we've been safe for years."

"You went back to school and got your degree, Max's an indie photographer celeb, and I've got my Youtube channel. Sometimes life works out!"

A raven tapped on the window. Chloe looked away from the table to watch it. One small black smudge against the beautiful landscape. Max and Rachel's voices faded into the distance for a minute.

"Earth to Chloe?"

She blinked. Now they were both closer to her, holding her hands tightly.

"Maybe you should go lie down for a bit. It happens to all of us."

Chloe pulled away, surprised at the strength of her anger. "No! I'm not stupid! We tried to make a perfect world so many times, and it always fails. This is not how this ends. We don't get to fuck up all of time, go through all this shit, and then, and then…get this kind of a world. What do we _do_? Like, for money? Where the hell are we?"

"Leave that to us," Rachel said, her long hair falling in front of her face.

"What was the point of all…all the time travel stuff? After everything we did? We just live happily ever after?"

"Don't we deserve that much?" Max tried to take her hand, but she recoiled.

"Deserve?" She snorted. "I don't deserve fucking anything. It doesn't…it doesn't work like that."

The raven tapped again.

"We're in love, Chloe. That's enough."

"Is it?" She stepped backward. The room swayed. Like a ship on waves.

_Shit._

"This isn't real. Someone's in my head. This is just…what I want."

"It's what you got, Chloe."

"We're not lying to you," said Rachel. She was standing before her now, beautiful and sad. She leaned in closer.

Chloe felt the long strands of her hair and brushed her cheek. She felt cold.

"No. Everybody lies…including me. This is a lie. This is _all_ a lie."

Glass shattered, and the raven cawed. Cold wind and rain blew through the broken window. Thunder roared outside. Suddenly Max clawed at her throat as water began to pour from her nostrils, her mouth. Her hair floated up, like she was underwater. Beside her, Rachel began to collapse, her skin rotting, her mouth filling up with dirt.

Her stomach heaving, she turned and ran. The wooden floor heaved beneath her, arms outstretched to keep her balance as she went. Max's pictures hanging on the walls swayed, then fell, one by one, smashing to the floor with the loud crack of glass and broken wood.

_This isn't real. Find something to focus on. Don't get swept away._

"Chloe! Come back! You can't keep running from yourself!"

She stumbled down the stairs, almost twisting her ankle on the final steps. A sudden lurch sent her slamming against the wall. A wooden statue of a deer at the side of the entrance leaned over and fell, its head snapping off.

"Stop, don't go!"

_This is a lie. It's a trap. It's a dream._

The door handle was heavy and cold, and only turned slightly when she threw all her weight down on it. The floor shifted again, and she clung to it to stay upright. Footsteps clattered down the stairs.

_Wake up, Chloe, you're dreaming!_

Finally the door handle gave way, and she stepped out into a small grassy yard overlooking a long, winding road. They were at the top of a mountain, and down below she could see the faint glimmering lights of a town in the far distance, bordered by highways and forests. Two bright lights were approaching fast, climbing up the highway towards the house.

"Chloe! You've got to believe me, this is real!"

Max and Rachel were at the doorway behind her, shouting into the storm. Above them, the ravens flew in a spiral.

"No, Max, it's not. I wish it was. Fuck, I wish it was."

She could hear an engine getting closer.

The car's headlights were bright in the darkness outside, like two beams of fire. It swerved and pulled up beside them, the back door opening automatically. Country music came from the speakers. She knew this car. Knew it should be a crumpled mess in the junkyard. Knew who it belong to.

"… _just called to tell you that I miss you, my old friend. Burning the midnight oil again…"_

"Chloe, get in!"

With one last look at Max and Rachel at the foot of their home, she turned and got into her father's car. He slammed the gas pedal and the car sped away down the long driveway. Max and Rachel receded in the dim light, holding each other as the winds whipped around them. Soon she couldn't see them or the house, only an endless army of tall pines to her right, and a guardrail leading to the valley on her left.

_Max. Rachel. Those weren't you, I know it. I'll find you both. This time I'll save you both._

"Chloe."

"Dad."

The road curved down in long, sloping circles. William took each one slowly, deliberately, though his face never betrayed any kind of unease. Rain splattered on the windshield while lightning cracked the sky in the distance. Thunder boomed.

Chloe cleared her throat. "So obviously this is a dream, right? I'm probably dying, alone, underneath some giant tree in the past."

William shrugged. Chloe could see his face in the rear-view mirror. "I don't know. This storm seems real to me."

"I've been in a lot of storms, Dad. A lot of them real, a lot of them not. Don't think that's evidence for or against."

"That's a fair point. So it's a dream then. What's it all mean?"

She pressed her hand to the window. It felt cool and wet. Real, not a dream. But she couldn't trust herself anymore, after all the unreality she'd seen.

"I saw something, by the tree. Maybe it was a hallucination or whatever, but…" She pressed her forehead against her open palm, just to feel the coolness. "I think this…time travel power…whatever gave it to us is _pissed_."

"Why's that?"

"I don't know! Because we were supposed to use it to do _something_. Something good, something better. And we tried! Dad, we really tried to make a better world…one where you lived."

"That certainly sounds better to me. I liked being alive." He made eye contact with her through the mirror and smiled for a moment. "But it sounds like it didn't work out."

Outside, the spiraling road kept going down. Trees on her right. The valley on her left. Some sprawling town twinkling with lights in the distance, somehow never closer.

"I don't know. Max said she made a world where you lived, but _I_ got into a car accident instead. I was paralyzed, and then I was dying, and she…"

_The faint glimmer of a memory, Max asleep at her side, watching her._

"That doesn't sound like a better world to me. Any world where you lived is a better one, even if I didn't. You should know that, Chloe."

"But we made another one, where you lived, and me and Max and even Rachel, we were all alive! Max and I were…together, and I got into college and Max moved back and…"

"And?"

"And I was happy. Really, actually, happy."

William smiled. "That's all I've ever wanted, Chloe. For you to be happy. I know that's what parents are supposed to say, but it's true. And it's not like I'm selfless. You can't know how happy it makes me to see you enjoying your life."

She swallowed back tears. "T-thanks, Dad."

"I'm just confused why you left your home back there. It looked like you were having the best life! A beautiful house, two amazing people who love you…"

_Why couldn't you just have stayed? Everything would've seemed normal eventually, if you decided to believe in it._

"Because it wasn't real."

"Real. That matters to you, doesn't it? If something's real."

"Yeah, it does." She wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

"I can get that. That's why you told Rachel, all those years ago."

_Rachel Amber in the hospital room, collapsing around her as she told her what her father had done. That look of pure hatred in her eyes when he entered. The crushing look as he realized she was gone for him forever._

"Right. It's what I would have wanted. To know the truth, even if it hurts. That's better than a lie."

"Everybody lies. Isn't that what you say?"

She nodded. "That's what I say. But I don't…did Rachel want to know? Would it have been better for her if she didn't? If all these alternate times are real, then maybe there's a world where she didn't know, and she was happier, and she never got involved with Frank or Jefferson, and she lived… _"_

"Maybe she would've found out eventually, and never forgiven you for lying. Maybe you would've never forgiven yourself. You can't keep agonizing over what-ifs, Chloe. You have to live the life you've been given."

"Dad, that's the whole point! That may be true for most people, but not for me, or Rachel or Max! I've already lived more lives than maybe anybody on Earth ever has – except for Max. I know that things could turn out differently! There's more than one story!"

"But knowing that doesn't help. Knowing that I'm alive in some other reality doesn't make it hurt less when I'm dead in yours."

"No. Maybe it makes it hurt more. Knowing that I could maybe try to reach you there, but then I'd just be…taking over some other Chloe's life."

"Some other Chloe? Which Chloe are you?"

_A hundred Chloes on the beach, roasting marshmallows on a burning whale._

_Chloe and Rachel in L.A._

_Chloe and Max, together through most of their teens, in a world where everyone lived._

_Chloe at the foot of the lighthouse, offering up herself to save everyone._

_Chloe driving away in the rain, Max asleep at her side._

She didn't know what to answer. What Chloe was she? She was all of them, and none of them. She'd experienced everything they had, but she'd chosen what to focus on, which memories, however contradictory, to stitch together into her own version of herself. She never knew what she would look like when she looked into a mirror.

But all of the memories she chose to embrace had something in common.

"I'm the Chloe who…loves Max. We both saved each other. And I'm the Chloe who loves Rachel, too. I've never stopped. I don't know how to stop. Am I selfish? Is that fucked up?"

William looked off into the distance for a moment, then shrugged. "Of course you're selfish. We're all selfish. But there's a whole lot of different kinds of love in this world. Or in all the worlds." He laughed. "I'm just you, right? I think you know how you feel. I think you know which Chloe you are."

In the past she built for herself, Rachel had saved her. She'd come along, a star lost on earth, burning bright and fast, and helped her find her way out of the darkness. Even if just for a little while. It was enough. And when she began to burn out, Chloe did whatever she could to save her. It wasn't enough, but she'd tried.

And then Max came. She knew how she felt about her. She didn't know how to build a version of Chloe without Max, even if she was just in memories and dreams.

Whoever she was now, she knew one thing.

"I'm the Chloe who's going to save them. That's the fucking Chloe Price I am."

The spiral uncoiled, and in the distant gray horizon she could see that they'd finally left the mountain. The road ahead was a long, straight shot towards the town she saw earlier. The roiling ocean showed through the fog some miles to her right, breaking into view for just a moment before the clouds closed in again.

The radio station sputtered out in a burst of static, and the car shook in the sudden winds.

"You know we're getting closer, Chloe."

"I know."

"It's quite a storm, I've heard."

"I know."

"Apocalyptic, even." William frowned. "I'm worried about all those people. Do you think we could warn them?"

"We should have tried. But they wouldn't believe us. I'm just a dropout, and you're a ghost."

The welcome sign to Arcadia Bay flashed in the headlights. The storm raged harder outside, and in the distance above the bay she could see the enormous whirling shape of the tornado. Rachel's rage, or Max's mistake, or some fucking random fluke of time and space. Here it was, ready to swallow everything she loved. As it always did.

A truck blared its horn, low and impossibly close.

"Chloe, it's time."

"Dad, I…"

Something monstrous slammed into the side of the car, and then she was flying, surrounded on all sides by fire, swirling shards of glass, and melted metal. She landed on something hard, thought for a moment that she should be in a lot of pain now, but wasn't. Another roar blasted above, and the crumpled wreck flew away from her, like a meteor burning the opposite way, rejected by Earth and flaming towards the skies.

She was lying on the road in Arcadia Bay, surrounded by screams and whirling winds. A couple of people stepped over her like she was dead, clutching bags underneath their arms. Their faces were pale and wet.

_You won't get out in time._

A shadow passed over her, and someone reached down a hand. She grabbed it, and was pulled upright, face to face with Rachel Amber in her Prospera costume.

The wizard grinned at her, blue flames reflected in her eyes.

"Rachel?"

Laughing, she spun away, fading into the rain like a projection. Chloe reached out a hand to pull her back, but it only passed through air and rain.

"Shit."

The tornado loomed ahead, shrieking like a demon. The wind lashed out, shoving her back against her hair, tossing her beanie into the skies. A loud screeching noise came from further down the road, and she turned towards it, already dreading.

A truck spun over like a toy, the screeching metal crunch of its collapse louder than the screams of those caught underneath it. A boat sailed through the sky, crashing into a building across the street. Flames erupted where it struck.

She raised a hand to shield her face from the heat. All around her, people were screaming and crying. Somewhere in the distance, she thought she could hear sirens, as if alerting people to the danger would have done anything at all to save them from it.

"It wouldn't," she said, almost to herself, stumbling ahead into the storm as the town scattered around her. "You're already gone. Max killed you. You died because of me."

A family huddled underneath an overturned truck, holding each other tight. "You all died," she said, walking past them.

Someone clawed at the window to a used bookstore, the shelves behind them alight with hungry fire. They beat at the window, trying to break it, but soon smoke obscured them and all sounds stopped.

"You died."

Two cars were fighting to slide through the wreckage, climbing slowly over piles of metal and snapped telephone poles. A couple people in each, hoping to escape.

"You died too." She kept going into the heart of the dying town.

* * *

She'd known all along where she was walking. The lights of the Two Whales flickered in and out. She'd heard from Max. She knew who was inside. She stepped over the oil slick outside, already beginning to spark.

_Maybe I can save her, even if it's just a dream._

It was like it always was. The faded and torn booth seats. The posters speckling the walls. The long table in front of the kitchen. The smell of frying oil, bacon, and cheap coffee. And now, fire, sweat, and salt water. The lights above shuddered. A few more people were huddled in corners, some cradling wounds, others curled up and waiting for death. It would come for them, she knew. They would die afraid in a diner.

She heard the voice from behind, clear and resolute, giving orders, making plans, trying to keep the little ragtag collection of people safe, even though Chloe could sense the fear behind her words. She pushed her way past the counter.

"Chloe?"

Frank Bowers was on the floor, looking like shit.

"Fuck, man…I'm sorry," she said.

"Shoulda known I'd go out this way. You've always been a pain in my ass, Price."

She couldn't hold back a grin.

_Good one, subconscious._

"Guilty as charged."

He really did look miserable. Max had told her about it, in halting words, during those early few days driving away from the ruin of the town, and then more, in another reality, growing up in a saved Arcadia Bay. Maybe her dreams were laying it on a little hard.

"I'm sorry, Frank. We…we had a lot in common, I think. Two Blackwell fuckups who couldn't get out of this town, and couldn't stop loving Rachel Amber."

"I'll drink to that," he said, raising a large water bottle. "To Rachel Amber. The only good thing this place ever had going for it."

_It had two things, actually._

Frank offered her the bottle. She took it, drank, and passed it back. "Thanks for saving us."

He waved a hand at her. "You don't owe me shit. Your girl was cheating on you with me. I think that makes us even."

_Cheating. Even now it still hurts._

"It was complicated. I'm glad…she made you happy, for a bit."

"All we can hope for."

"All we can hope for."

"Now go find your ma, I know you didn't come here to see me."

"Fuck no," she said, laughing. He grinned, and flipped her off.

She opened the doors to the kitchen and saw her mother. For just a moment, she forgot she was dreaming, or whatever she was doing, and ran into her arms. Joyce wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. The fire licked the outside of the building, just out of sight.

"Honey, thank goodness you're safe…"

"Mom, I'm not safe, you're not safe, this place is going to explode! We gotta get out, c'mon, get the fuck out!"

"Chloe?"

"Mom, I'm sorry." She felt like she was going to be sick. She was shaking. "I was a shitty daughter! You needed me, and I…I shut you out."

"Chloe, it's…it's alright, you don't have to…"

"No, I do!" She felt the tears on her face now, warm against the cold. "I know what's going to happen to you. God, I wish I'd…"

"I'm right here, honey, it's okay. It's okay." Chloe let herself sink into her mother's arms, into the warmth of her. She smelled like coffee and syrup. Like home. "You couldn't have known."

"But I do now! I know, I swear, I know all of it."

"So you know that we had a lot of time together, right?"

The fire was already creeping along the oil slick, impossibly slowly.

She let out another sob. "Yeah. Were any of those times real? I mean, did you…did you really get to live those lives or…or…did they all fall apart? Is that what's going to happen? Am I trying to erase all those other timelines?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Chloe."

A bright, hot light flared up outside. There was nothing behind the windows except the fire. Nothing inside except her and her mother. The other people flickered in and out, like candles fighting against the wind.

"You're not real, I know. Just like Dad wasn't real. You're just…me. Talking to myself."

"Maybe. But there always was a lotta me in you. We Price women are fighters. Both William and David said so."

Chloe looked up at her, at this version of her mother she'd dreamt about so many times. Joyce Price, doomed to lose the ones she loved in so many ways. Doomed to die in a diner, her husband in a bunker with a psychopath, her daughter driving away with her soon-to-be-girlfriend. Or else, living on, losing her daughter as well her husband. And probably losing David too.

"You had a shit life, Mom. I know it. You…you didn't deserve any of this. You deserved more."

Joyce smiled. "You know that doesn't mean anything."

The fire spread past the windows now, nearly creeping its long, flickering fingers into the Two Whales. A slow motion death, almost upon them.

"You should go, Chloe. It's almost time."

She took a ragged breath. "Can't you come too?"

Joyce pulled her into another embrace. "Don't worry about me. I'll be alright. Go find Rachel and Max. They need you."

"Go where?"

"Where you don't want to go," she whispered.

Chloe didn't have time to respond before her mother pushed her into the back room, and everything exploded.

* * *

When her ears stopped ringing and the smoke cleared from her eyes, Chloe awoke into a world of white ash. The skeletal remains of buildings and trees stood stark against a pale sky. Crows clustered on the edges of dead door-frames and wheeled in the skies in strange patterns. Everything was still, and quiet, and dead.

_Where you don't want to go._

She'd been trapped in nightmares before. She still remembered one night, only a few weeks after her father was killed, when she'd stolen some of what remained of his vodka and drank entirely too much alone in her room. Her dreams had been a cascading horror show of strange figures, enormous houses that led only to funeral homes, burning faces and bloody hands. Her teeth had fallen out, and something crouched low in the shadows behind her, following the trail of her bones. She'd tried to wake up, and she thought she had, only to be caught in another dream, and another after that. She'd finally woken up, drenched in sweat, her heart hammering, screaming. She'd half-hoped her mother would come into check on her, but she never did. She spent the rest of the night by the toilet, throwing up, jumping at every creak in the house, convinced she was still asleep.

She'd gotten out before. But this wasn't an ordinary nightmare. It was something else. She wasn't time-traveling, not in the literal sense, but she remembered touching the weird tree in the past, remembered Max and Rachel both disappearing, remembered the things she'd seen in a whirling rush of memory and story. Something about the source of the powers. Something deep in the bones of Arcadia Bay, reaching out to try to make things better in whatever way it could.

The power had sent Max into a horror show fun-house version of her own mind, and it had done the same to Chloe when she'd first experienced it out in the desert. Probably Rachel too. If the power chose them all, maybe it knew them, knew the things that kept them up at night.

"What do you want?" she asked. The crows looked down at her in silence.

She sank down into the ash. White flakes floated above her, settling on her arm like snow.

"No answer? Nothing? What a surprise. Just once I'd love if someone explained to me what the fuck was going on."

A piece of charred wood fell from a tree nearby, nearly dissolving into ash before it hit the ground. A few crows left their branch and darted in different directions. It was quiet.

"MAX! RACHEL!"

Her own voice echoed back at her, scared and desperate. She shook her head.

"Fine. I'll find them both. That's all I can do. Keep going."

_Where you don't want to go._

Chloe looked up. She was in the charred husk of the old mill, and Sara was tied to a chair, her head lolling. Damon Merrick leaned over her.

"This shit is hard to kick."

She took a step closer. The knife was in her hands, like magic. "Hey Damon. Leave her the fuck alone."

He snarled, and leapt towards her.

_He hurt Drew and Mikey, he almost killed Rachel, he ruined her mother, and he might have ruined everything._

_And you couldn't stop him._

This time, she held her ground, and when his fist swung towards her, she ducked. The knife sped forward, all of her force behind it. She felt it slide into flesh, heard his breath cut out as he collapsed. She pulled the knife out. Better to let him bleed out.

She pushed him aside and stepped forward, only now it was Rachel tied to the chair. Jefferson was behind her, kissing her head, one hand sliding down the back of her shirt while the other injected a needle into her neck. He noticed her looking at him, and smiled.

"Chloe Price. Come to kill me again."

"Fucking yes, I'll kill you again. A hundred fucking times."

He laughed. "Go ahead. I'll still be alive in another reality. Every time you go back, every time you fix anything, I'll be waiting." He snapped his fingers. "Maybe in some reality _I'll_ get the powers. Maybe then you'll be in my art."

The knife in her hand was a gun now. She curled her fingers around the grip and raised it to his face.

He laughed. "I'm just a dream. Killing me won't solve-"

The recoil kicked in her hands. A bright trail of blood spurted as he fell to the ground.

"Some things I don't regret."

When she looked away from his body, it was Sera again, sitting at the wooden table, smoking a cigarette. She gestured towards the wooden chair, the restraints now hanging listlessly at its side. Chloe sat down and put the gun on the table. Sera blew smoke in the air, and sighed.

"You don't regret killing him?"

Chloe looked back at his corpse, only now his face was James Amber's.

"I…I'm sorry it had to happen."

"But you don't regret your choice. I told you to keep the truth from her, and you didn't. You killed him for her. He died three years later in the storm, but you killed him."

"I couldn't lie to her."

"She could lie to you. And she did. I should know, I'm her mother."

_Frank. Jefferson. Whoever it was in L.A._

"Yeah. Rachel is…complicated. It should've been up to her, but it wasn't." She stared at Sera, who looked even more like Rachel in her dreams. What if she had raised Rachel? Who would Rachel be then? Would she have even needed the powers in the first place?

"It was up to you."

"Yeah. I…I was sixteen. I was so fucking scared, and in love, and I'd almost died…how can you judge someone for their decision when they were like that?"

Sera shrugged, and offered the cigarette to Chloe, wordlessly. She took it. It didn't taste like anything.

"And anyway," she said, handing it back, "I don't regret it. I wonder what would've happened if I lied, sure. But knowing what I knew, I couldn't ever lie to her."

"That's fair. It's a lot to put on you. Still, I wish you would've chosen differently. Rachel deserved to have a father."

"I know."

They sat in silence, passing the cigarette back and forth across the heavy table. James' blood pooled around Chloe's ankles, but she didn't move them. It didn't really feel like anything.

"Did you…what happened to you?"

"Depends on the reality."

"In the one where…where the town was destroyed."

Sera took another long drag. "I left town right after we talked in 2010. Went as far east as I could go."

"You're just me. How could I know that?"

"You don't. But it makes sense. I told you I would leave."

"Right." She drummed her fingers on the table.

"You want to ask me something? Go ahead."

"Where is she? Where's Rachel? And Max…if you know where she is…"

"Don't know about Max. Rachel though…she's wrapped up in this in a way I don't understand." She put the cigarette out on the table. Smoke trailed up, curling like a tornado. "But I know Rachel. She'd want to take charge of whatever it is. If it didn't work out her way, she'd find a way to change it so it did."

Chloe nodded. "I saw something…I guess, at the beginning of this dream. Something about Arcadia Bay, and time, and Rachel. About our powers, about why all this happened."

Sera smiled. "Go on."

"Rachel…I think she's…part of this. Whatever part of her is still around, it's tied up with whatever gave us our powers."

"I think that's a reasonable assumption. Find the source of everything, and find her."

Chloe laughed. "Of course. That'll be easy. My mom said I had to go to where I didn't want to go, and then she sent me here. Is this where I don't want to go?"

Sera shook her head, her long hair falling in front of her face. Just like Rachel's. "You know this isn't it, Chloe. This is where _I_ don't want to go. That bunker is where is Rachel doesn't want to go. Where do you not want to go?"

_Oh._

"How do I get there?"

Sera gestured lazily towards the door back into what remained of the bar. "Just pick a door. It's your dream."

Chloe reached for the gun, then hesitated. She knew what she wanted it for. Who she wanted to use it on. Who she wanted lying dead on the bathroom floor. It would be so easy.

_Where you don't want to go._

She left it on the table. The door to leave was half swung open, only a vague darkness visible behind it. Ash coated everything, even falling off her hair as she moved.

"Sera?"

"Yes, Chloe?"

"Do you like your life now?"

She smiled. "No, I don't think so. Rachel is gone. Even James is gone. Staying clean is…it's hard. Damon took that away from me. But I'm better than I was before."

"Yeah."

"Sometimes that's what life is. Going on."

Chloe nodded, and stepped into the darkness.

* * *

The hallway seemed to stretch on forever. The skeletons pasted to the school walls turned their heads, smoke curling from the cigarettes in their mouths. The security guards, all whose faces were either David's or Skip's, turned away, flicking their flashlights down other corridors. In the darkness, only the door to the girl's bathroom was illuminated.

_Where you don't want to go._

"Let's get this fucking over with."

She opened the door.

The body lying on the floor, blood pooling across the dirty tiles, only looked like her in the most superficial sense. Sure, her face looked like Chloe Price, and she had the beanie, and the tattoos, and the blue hair. But it wasn't her. It…wasn't…it wasn't…

"You offered to do it," said her reflection in the warped mirror. "You told her to go back and let it happen."

"Your one act of heroism," said another reflection. "The best thing you could do for Arcadia Bay was to fucking die."

"Everything you've been doing, all your multiple lives and time traveling adventures, all your little moments of self-discovery in dreams, it's all because you let an entire town be destroyed. All so you could be someone's fucked up idea of a perfect love story."

"You drove away laughing, because if you couldn't bring yourself to get out of here, at least you could fucking _burn it down_. That's what you do, Chloe Price. You destroy things."

Chloe punched the mirror. It shattered into a thousand shards, raining down on the sink in a mixture of silver and blood. The other Chloes in the mirrors kept laughing.

"And now you find out that there are other timelines? Other realities where you weren't so much of a selfish fuck-up? Wow, perfect, now you can assuage your guilt. It's not _that_ bad they all died, because they're alive somewhere else. How _convenient_."

"Frank Bowers. Kate Marsh and her entire family. Warren Graham. Taylor Christensen. Courtney Wagner. Dana Ward. Hayden Jones. Juliet Watson. Alyssa Anderson. Brooke Scott. Daniel DaCosta. Evan Harris. Justin Williams. Luke Parker. Stella Hill. Trevor Johnson. Ms. Grant. Raymond Wells. Samuel Taylor. Skip Matthews. James Amber. Rose Amber…"

Chloe looked away from the mirrors, her hands covering her ears. "Stop!"

"What are you even trying to do? Get out of this to your 'perfect world'? Change it so nothing bad happened?"

"You know what happens when you use the power. Do one thing, everything splits."

"One world where you change it."

"One world where it stays the same."

"All those leftover Max and Chloe's."

"Each one thinking they're about to change something."

"Each one knows they got unlucky. Waving their hands around doing nothing."

"So even if you fix everything, they all _died_."

"Shut up!" She shouted, turning her back to the mirrors. Her blood ran between her fingers, dripping to the floor, mingling with the blood of that dead Chloe. "I didn't…I didn't choose this!"

"Max only did it because she loved you. It only happened because she saved you. You only died because you and Rachel tried to get away from this town. She only wanted to get away because she hated her father. She only hated her father because you told her what he did. You only found out what she did because you fucking tanked your life because a pretty girl asked you to skip school."

She whirled around. "Alright, they're all dead because of me! Rachel and Max broke time because of me. We all fucked up! We made better worlds and then ruined like, like we ruin everything!"

The Chloes in the mirror smiled in unison, raising their arms. The blood trickled down, swirling around their arms and growing thick and dark. Her own arm felt heavy, covered in stone. It dropped down to her side. She could hear the blood pumping in her chest, feel it course through her veins, pound in her head.

"I deserve this," she muttered. The Chloes in the mirror nodded. "Rachel could have already left without me, or never needed to. Max would never have had to make that decision. She'd just be a photographer. Probably end up with Warren, have kids, live in a nice house."

The mirror warped, and she could see an older Max, wearing glasses and a sweater, holding a little girl, grinning and laughing. An older Warren came up beside her, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her head.

"I'm a mistake. I ruined all their lives. I ruined _time_."

She felt herself fall to her knees, splashing in the blood. This is where she always belonged. Where the writers of the universe had meant her to end up. Her own dead body lay beside her, a blue butterfly stepping lightly on her mouth.

A butterfly.

The picture of the butterfly that Max had torn apart and tossed over the edge. The picture that could've saved Arcadia Bay.

The picture that did save Arcadia Bay, in another reality.

Max took that picture. She saw something beautiful, and had to take the shot. And then she saved Chloe's life.

But not here. Chloe was dead here, so that meant Max…

Her arm was impossibly heavy. She crawled, her hands and knees warm with blood, across the bathroom floor. The voices from the mirrors were growing louder, all her innermost thoughts, all the things she feared and regretted and hated about herself echoing in that small room filled with death.

"You pretend to feel guilty, but you don't. You want to go on your endless field trip with Max. Or Rachel. Doesn't really matter."

"Max is obsessed with you, because she has to convince herself you're the greatest fucking thing ever, worth at least an entire town."

"You're supposed to die alone and forgotten. Time split apart because you didn't know your place."

She crawled forward, one hand ahead of the other. It was so heavy.

"Your mother's dead because of you. Her life was full of shit because of you."

"You could've made things better with David, at least just for your mom. But you had your _pride_."

"Elliott was right about Rachel. She's still pulling your strings now."

The last stall was ahead, the door hanging open. She was so close now. Her arm dragged behind her, impossible to move. Her breath came slow. Her head pounded.

"You and Max will fall apart eventually, just like you and Rachel did. That's how all relationships end."

"You'll never get out. There will never be a time when you're safe."

"What will you do? Go to college? Work at a gas station? You're a fucking dropout. You're poor."

"Max and Rachel left you. They're better off without you."

She rounded the end, her face nearly pushed into the floor. The voices were so loud. It was time to close her eyes. She'd done enough. The grief was too much. The world would be better off without Chloe Price.

Someone cried.

She opened her eyes.

Max Caulfield laid on the floor, her hands hugging her knees, sobbing. Her camera lay smashed beside her.

"Max?"

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry…" she muttered, rocking back and forth.

"Is it you? Are you real?"

Max screamed again, a loud, hoarse cry that shook her whole body. She leaned away from Chloe, her face towards the wall.

"She's not real," said a voice from the mirror.

"Saving her won't do anything."

"You're dying under a tree right now."

"She's even worse than you."

She didn't know if the voices were right. Maybe they were. Maybe none of this was real. But for once, it didn't matter. She dragged herself closer, and reached for Max's hand. She pushed herself up, leaned against the stall, and cradled Max in her arms.

The voices in the mirror keep shouting, but she let them speak until their voices grew tired, and they faded into the background. Only whispers. Not silent, not absent, but weak. Max's head rested against her chest, under her chin. She smelt like Max. She felt…real. It was impossible to think that she was real, that somehow there were separate thoughts and a separate life inside this one person. Her friend, throughout all her lives. She loved her. Even if she was a dream. Even if she was only a memory.

"Max?"

Max didn't respond, but her crying had stopped. She seemed like she was sleeping, breathing slowly.

"I'm here. It's Chloe. I'm okay. You're okay. I _love_ you. Do you get that? Are you listening to me? I love you. No matter what you've done, I love you. We will get through this, okay?"

She looked up, back towards the mirrors. Only now it was Max's face that stared out at her.

_Max has to be hearing those voices a million times louder than me._

Suddenly, she understood.

"Fuck. This is your place too, isn't it? The place you don't want to go. We're both here! This is you, the real you! We're all connected…we're…our dreams are all connected…and that means…"

Max shifted in her arms. Alive.

_Awake, dear heart, awake!_

"Chloe?"

"Max!"

They held each other there, in the darkest pits of their own minds, in the place poised on the edge of dreams and time. One solid thing living in the horrors. An anchor in a storm.

When they finally let go of each other, the voices were gone. The blood had drained away, and there were no other bodies lying on the bathroom floor. The mirrors showed only their own reflections, warped and bruised, but thankfully, silent.

"God, Chloe, this has so been fucked up."

"Shit Max, it was hard for me, I can't imagine what you went through…"

She held her hand. Squeezed it tight.

"I'm done with that. Whatever we did, it's in the past now." She looked up at her. "We have to make things better going forward. Or all of that would be for nothing."

"Right."

"Let's save Rachel."

"Shit Max, what if we really do this? I know there's that other reality where everything's great but…I tried so hard to save her and I was always too late…"

"She's still here. Only…I don't know where. I never got the chance to really know her."

"I know where she is."

"The bunker?"

_Rachel in the dark room._

_Awake, dear heart, awake!_

"No. She's…tougher than us. She's tied up in all of this, part of whatever gave us our powers."

"I saw it too, the visions? It tried to save her first!"

Chloe nodded. "She's special to it. She's part of it, somehow."

"So where is she?"

"Where she felt the most powerful."

* * *

They walked the long hallway of Blackwell Academy in silence, holding hands. She knew they were both remembering their own long night in this school, sneaking into Principal Wells' office, going for their night swim and realizing that strange fluttering sensation in their stomachs when they looked at each other. Coming this close to being caught, but driving away at the last minute.

Outside, the Blackwell lawn was lit by streetlamps and fireflies, flickering like stars. Posters stood where the pathways intersected. Ferdinand. Miranda. Caliban. Ariel.

And Prospera, sitting on the stage, sand poured out on the floor to create a makeshift island. The sails of the crashed ship fluttered in the night breeze. She stood up, clapping, her face in a wide grin. When they approached, she raised a hand, ordering them to stop. For some reason, Chloe couldn't help but listen. They both sat down on the plastic chairs and looked up at Rachel Amber – no, Prospera – resplendent in tattoos and robes, glowing with blue light, fire dancing on her limbs. Chloe felt the ground underneath her tilt, only to see that the entire Blackwell mall was on an enormous ship, floating in the seas, lifting high on the waves in a dark and stormy night.

_"Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow…"_


	24. Some God o' the Island

Chloe had always wondered what she had looked like on stage, years ago, for those few fleeting scenes as Ariel. A gawky girl in an ugly costume, fumbling past strange phrases and trying desperately to remember her lines, written four hundred years earlier in words that barely made sense. She'd known she looked at Rachel too long, too obviously obsessed, caught in the wizard's spell. But then Rachel had changed the lines. Given her a look that was Rachel, not just Prospera. She'd come up with Shakespeare-worthy lines, on the spot, in front of everyone. For her. To ask her to trust her. To promise her freedom and love and escape.

It was the most fucking romantic thing that had ever happened to her. Maybe, even after everything, it was one of the most fucking romantic things that had ever happened to anyone. In that moment, with that gesture, Chloe would've done anything for Rachel. And she did, right up until the end, in whatever reality, in whatever way the end came.

This must have been something like watching her in the Tempest, but it was all inverted. Rachel – no, this was Prospera herself – conjured up memories of the real Rachel, of Chloe, of Max, and set them up on the stage. Here, in this place between dreams and time, the stage itself shifted, mimicking the places burned forever into Chloe's memories: Her house. The junkyard. Blackwell. The Two Whales. The Ambers'. The beach. Her apartment in L.A. Her car. The lighthouse.

Max and Chloe watched as Prospera showed them their story, showed them how this power had entered their lives in something that was part accident, part test, part hope for something better. One by one, decision after decision, played across the stage, the spectral forms of Rachel, Chloe, Max, and the others drifted apart and reformed like whorls of dust.

Everything they had done, all of their mistakes and loves and decisions, played before their eyes. And something finally made sense to her. This whole sorry tale was marked and formed by decisions, moments where the three of them had to decide one thing to do over another, all without knowing the consequences. Each decision, made in anger or fear or selfishness or their best attempt at doing what was right, each one a ripple in a pond, each one leading them down their own separate paths. Sometimes what seemed right ended up being the best; other times it doomed them or others. They could see the futures their choices made. The three of them, but no one else. As far as Chloe was aware, if they were the only people to ever gain this power, then they were the only people who truly had to live with their choices, who saw for sure what the alternatives would have been, who could trace the line of cause and effect and random chance and see just how powerful – and powerless – they were. So many widely different stories, and yet…and yet…so much beyond their control.

_How can she judge us? We didn't ask for this._

In the climactic scene, the ghostly forms of Max and Rachel dissolved while the image of Chloe fell at the foot of the huge tree and was enveloped in blue light. The curtain closed in an unsettling silence, leaving behind only the distant sound of waves. Dawn was coming, and Max and Chloe sat alone in the early morning light. The remnants of Prospera's visions drifted like mist over the expanse of mostly empty seats.

"Well, that was bullshit," said Chloe. She sat up and stretched her legs. Funny, how she still felt the need to do that, even if her real body was dying underneath a tree somewhere else.

Max looked off into the distance. "What was she trying to tell us? That she's been watching us, giving us all these choices, messing with our lives? Why?"

"She likes fucking with us. She basically came out and said it! Makes her feel more human to watch us suffer." Chloe spat on the grass. "Fuck that."

"I don't know if that's exactly…"

"Fuck it is. She's – it's – some weird alien, or god, or advanced A.I., or whatever, and it wants to be human, and it falls in love with Rachel and then gets pulled into all our human bullshit. We're dolls it's playing with. And it's getting tired of us." Chloe crossed her arms and stared at the curtains. They were rustling slightly in the morning breeze. "We need to find what's left of Rachel in there, and get the fuck out."

Max tucked her arms under her shoulders. "And then what? If this place is like that other lighthouse, a place outside of time, maybe we can find a good timeline to stay in. But what then? Does this just keep happening over and over again? Running from other versions of ourselves, from…from Prospera?"

"I don't know." She pulled Max into her arms. "I just want to be with you. I want to save Rachel, but I want to be with you, okay? Wherever…and whenever. Partners in time, remember?"

Max leaned up to kiss her.

_She's so fucking good._

Eventually, they pulled away, and Max's eyes lowered to the ground. "Even after you and Rachel…back at the tree…"

_Max, running away into the woods._

"I'm sorry. That was shitty. It's just…I'm always gonna love her, Max. Not in the same way as you, not as much as you, but…she's part of all this too. I failed her before." She put up a hand as Max started to speak. "I know, I know, there wasn't much I could've done, but still. Guilt's a hell of a drug. Even if we fucked up a lot, even if…all those people died, it's gotta be better if I can save her. If we can do this one good thing."

Max was quiet for a moment, her eyes closed. Chloe rubbed the back of her neck. She thought she'd have been done with this kind of awkwardness by now, given all they'd been through. But, no. Some things would always be with her.

_Did I fuck this up?_

_No, I know Max. I know her better than anyone._

Max slowly opened her eyes and nodded. "Yeah. Let's do it. One good thing. And then…Chloe…you know what's going to happen next, right?"

"Um…no, not really. What?"

"It's what she's always done. What we've always had to do." She took Chloe's hand again. "A choice. We're going to have to make a choice. I think…we should be ready."

_A choice? A choice between what?_

Before she could respond, a noise came from behind them. They both turned around to see the curtains part, and Prospera emerge, still dressed in her costume. Chloe nodded at Max, and the two climbed up onto the stage and walked slowly towards Prospera, towards the source of all of this, towards what was still left of Rachel Amber. Behind her, the stage was still set up for the island from The Tempest, sand covering everything, seagulls wheeling above.

"Max, Chloe, I'm so glad you came to the show! What'd you think?" Rachel flashed a smile, exactly like all her smiles.

_The smile that made me get expelled. That smile that killed me, in some realities._

_Don't get distracted._

Chloe took a slow step forward. The ground underneath her swayed, until Max took her hand. Steady, she raised her eyes to Prospera's.

_Everybody lies._

"You're not really Rachel, are you?"

Prospera kept smiling. "Rachel wasn't really Rachel, if you think about it."

"The fuck does that mean?"

Prospera gave a sad smile and a shrug. "There was a Rachel for every occasion. The Rachel for her parents, the Rachel for the Vortex Club, the Rachel for the theatre, the Rachel for those modeling shows…"

"And the Rachel for me."

"Right. I am all of those Rachels, and more. I'm Rachel," she twirled around, exactly like she did on that day when she pulled Chloe into the drama club and asked if she wanted to skip school, "as she always wanted to be."

"Fuck this. Why can't I just get a clear answer?"

"That would ruin the mystery."

"Why is it always a fucking mystery?" Chloe kicked at one of the papier-mâché boulders dotting the stage. A scared seagull leapt into the air and cawed.

"Careful," whispered Max. She squeezed her hand. "You're okay."

Chloe looked back at her and nodded, before turning to Prospera. "Why all the lies? Why do you always lie to me, in every fucking timeline? Is there a real Rachel in there? Was there ever?"

Another shrug. "I don't know. Is there a real Chloe? I told your story, all of them, so I know about the beach and all the other Chloes. Which one is the real you? The dead punk on the bathroom floor? The girl who kissed Max beneath the lighthouse and prepared to die? The one who drove away from the wreckage of her old life? The one in Los Angeles?"

"N-no, I'm…"

"No, you're a bunch of different Chloes, and you can't keep them all straight." She tapped Chloe lightly on the shoulder with her staff, prodding her back a step. "Chloe Price is always a bunch of masks. Just like Rachel Amber. Just like Max Caulfield. Shaped by circumstance and choice and fate." Suddenly her face turned sad, that whip-quick change Chloe remembered so well. Rachel never did stay in one emotional state for long.

"I got…obsessed. One little life, one small tragedy." Prospera raised her own hands in front of her, staring at them. "Probably helped that she's so beautiful, didn't it? I felt all of humanity too much, I became like them, in all their flaws and biases, and after everything that happens, I chose to help a girl named Rachel Amber. Because she was radiant, and beautiful, and tragic, and dead before her time."

She held out her open palm, and a flame flickered to life between her fingers. It danced back and forth, flitting between her fingers like a snake. Her eyes were wide and mesmerized, lit by the glow of the flame. Rachel's eyes.

"And fire burns so bright."

"Is that why you look like her? Is that…why you're doing the whole Shakespeare thing?"

Prospera closed her fist, and the flame died. She spun towards Chloe until she was in front of her, then behind her, walking around her like some circling bird of prey.

"Yes, that's why I look like her. Because I fell in love with her too, or near enough. And Shakespeare…well, this was the moment when you realized what Rachel was to you, what she represented, what she could be. So that's why you see me here, in this form. That's what Rachel is: a representation, a mask, a mirror, a mirage."

Chloe clenched her fist.

"Rachel was a lot of things. Some people…some people have too much living inside them, so they have to wear different faces, be more people than everyone else, because everyone else needs them to be more. Rachel was all of that, and not all of it was good. But she was a _person_. _Is_ a person. Not a mask. If that's one good thing from all this shit, it's that Rachel's alive somewhere."

Prospera shook her head slowly.

"It's an act! It's all an act! I thought I could help you all, but you just keep playing out the same dramas over and over again. The same roles and the same stories, just swapping the actors. You fall in love and you just try to carve out your own little world and it wrecks everything for everyone else! It hurts so much, to watch you all throw everything away. But I know now…it won't get any better."

Max let go of her hand and stepped in between Chloe and Prospera.

"You know it always ends badly?" asked Max. "You've seen all the realities?"

Prospera nodded. "All the ones touched by the power, by the three of you."

"Then why…why did the tornado come? Why did…the one timeline where I…when I went back to let Chloe…die…why did that save Arcadia Bay?" Chloe could hear the fear and guilt in Max's voice, but she was strong, and she kept going, resolute. "There were other timelines, like the one with Rachel and Chloe in L.A. The tornado didn't destroy them! Or the world we made where everybody lived! What about that?"

Chloe had almost forgotten about the reality where Max had sacrificed her to save Arcadia Bay. It was a world she'd never experienced, except once, as some kind of temporal time ghost, when she'd seen that other Max crying in her Blackwell dorm. Time had never made any kind of sense, why should it now? But Max was right. What was behind the thing that had caused so much death and pain?

Prospera leaned on her staff, her eyes faltering. "The storm always comes." She looked up, her eyes flashing with a mix of anger and sorrow. "It's not always in the same time. It's not always a tornado. Sometimes it's a flood, or a wildfire." She snapped, and another flame danced between her fingers before she closed her fist, extinguishing it. She looked down again. "It's time, punishing you for trying to do differently. Punishing me for thinking you could do it. But every time, you fail. And the storm comes to wipe the slate clean, return things to the way they were supposed to be, when nothing flinched and everything came into being."

The waves crashed louder now, somewhere beyond the edges of her vision, hidden in the morning mist. Chloe, even in this dream, felt something boiling inside her. An anger she always had, chained up in the darker parts of her, in every reality she'd experienced. Something built into the bones of Chloe Price. She stepped up beside Max.

"Let me get this straight. You…you're…Arcadia Bay…or the land it's built on, or the spirits of the people or some shit. And you decide to save Rachel and give her powers. And she lives this time, she doesn't die in the dark room, and then everything plays out like I remember. But life gets in the way, and she keeps making more timelines, and everything goes to shit, so that timeline breaks."

_Rachel calling her frantically, saying "Nathan tried to kill me" over and over again, days before they left for California. Rachel in the hospital room, again, saying "you die all the time." Rachel reaching for her to stay, trying to hold onto something…_

"You try again. Max gets the powers now."

_The alarm ringing, and Nathan running out, scared._

"And she uses them to _help_ people. Every damn time. To make people's lives better, and to help us find Rachel. But no, it's not good enough. The fucking tornado comes because she was supposed to let me die. So she decides to save me, and let the tornado hit Arcadia Bay."

_The picture, torn in two, floating in the black sky, caressed by the winds. The tornado crushing into the town below, like all those homes and buildings and trees and people were only toys. Only things._

"And then she makes so many timelines and…every reality we make still has problems. We get caught up in our own petty shit and drama and nothing's perfect."

_The car ramming into Jefferson. Burying him in the junkyard. Max confessing on the frozen beach._

"So you decide that you've given us enough chances, and you're gonna scrap the whole thing. Get us all here together, wipe us out at the roots, just give up?"

Prospera nodded. "Yes. I'm so sorry…I wanted you to succeed. Hoped all your failures would amount to something. But I'm not convinced."

Chloe burst out a short, sharp laugh. "That's it? We failed your little fucking test, and now we're gonna get expelled? You're just some kind of cosmic Principal Wells? That's the grand fucking secret of all this time travel shit?"

She felt the fire inside her now, hot and angry. Her vision narrowed.

"I don't care if you're god, or whatever, but if you're the one who built all this, then I have two words for you. Fuck. You."

Prospera laughed. "There you go again. Chloe Price, the rebel, the fighter, the angry one. Playing right into character."

"I don't give a shit. How do we get out of this? How do I…save all of Max? All of Rachel? You can take back your power, fine, we failed to make the world a better place. I'm done. No more fucking time travel. I want out. I want Max, and I want Rachel, and I want you to leave us the fuck alone."

Chloe thought she saw a small, sad, smile play across Prospera's face, but perhaps it was only the flickering shadows of the flames dancing around her, caught in the shadows on the stage wall.

"Okay."

"Okay? That's it?"

"I know you both too well. I don't think you're going to give up. Even if I have."

A pirate flag hanging in the back of the stage caught the wind and fluttered. More seagulls cried noisily somewhere off-stage.

Max took her hand, and they followed Prospera as she stepped off the stage and walked towards the edge of Blackwell property. In reality, there was a road here, overlooking the rest of the town. But here, in the dream, it was only the ocean. Prospera stopped at the edge, and looked over.

"I hope you're right. That you can make something out of all this failure. I love you all, so much." Prospera smiled. "You've shown me what it's like. Being a person."

Max took a deep breath. "How do you like it?"

"It's…difficult," she said, still smiling. "I thought if you could fix your mistakes, you could save yourselves. Save me. From all the storms. But they keep coming anyway. There at the end of every story."

The wind whipped through Chloe's hair as she looked out over the edge of this island. Dark blue water, white foam, roiling waves. An endless sea, lapping up against one small island built of dreams and memories. Max, her best friend, the sky of stars at the end of the darkness, was here with her, even if her own body was missing somewhere else. And Rachel, the bright flame that had kept her warm in her coldest moments, had wrestled with something beyond any of them, and found herself entangled with it.

All of this, time traveling and dreams and fate, all of it wasn't _supposed_ to happen. Whichever world really came first didn't matter; Chloe would've ended up either dead physically or dead in her soul. Someone else forgotten by Arcadia Bay, used up, and consumed.

And yet she was here, impossibly. Maybe she shouldn't be. Maybe all those who had to die so that she could live deserved to live more than she did. Maybe their blood was on her hands.

Or maybe the three of them, Rachel, Max, and Chloe, were caught in something no one else had ever been through, forced to make decisions no one else should or could ever bear. Trapped by some twisted sense of fate and narrative drama to rend their own souls to prove they were human.

Chloe thought back to the girl she was before any of this. She barely recognized her. She loved her, wanted to hold in her arms and tell her that life was still worth something, even if it was a kind lie. But she was different now. She'd seen all the ways the world could be, all the ways her own life could be, and saw there was something beautiful there, just within reach. If only she'd known. If only all of them could have the chance to know.

Prospera stood beside her, leaning on her staff, following Chloe's gaze out into the horizon. Max, at her side, took her hand. Chloe squeezed it tight, then turned to face the wizard.

"Look at me. I was a fuckup. Was? Am? Will be? I don't know. I dropped out of school for a girl I barely knew. I was a shit daughter. I ran away from a town that got destroyed just for me. I'm not proud of everything I've done. But…I was better in some of these timelines. I-I learned, I improved. I got my shit together, at least a little. Why can't the world? Humans are shitty, I know, but…to just write us off like this? I fucking refuse to accept that things can't get any better, that we didn't make things a little better. Maybe every time we try to improve the world, something else falls apart, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying! The world isn't always improving, it's going backwards all the time, but that doesn't mean it never gets better! There's no perfect world, but any world where I Max and I loved each other is a better fucking world than the rest. And that would've never happened if I stayed dead in a fucking bathroom."

Prospera sighed, a quiet smile on her lips. She shook her head slowly.

"Maybe you're right, Chloe Price. Probably not, but maybe. What do you say to all those who died so you could live?"

Max spoke up. "What do we say? I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry. But that's…that's worth less than nothing. I have to live with that. I didn't ask for that happen. I didn't know what would save them. But if the storm was coming anyway, in some reality…at least I can work to make their deaths mean something."

"We made a good reality, one where they all lived," said Chloe. "Doesn't that count for something?"

"I don't know," said Prospera. "I don't think those words apply."

They sat in silence, listening to the waves. High above, a raven circled.

"I'm going to leave you," said Prospera. "I fear you're mistaken, but…but I hope you're not. I hope that when I…let go of all of this…I'm better for it. Maybe I can help in different ways to keep the storm at bay. For another few realities at least."

"Leave us? Does that mean…"

"It means my charms are o'erthrown." She laughed. "My play is almost ended. It will be left to the three of you to figure out what to do with the mess of memories and realities I've left behind." She turned away from the water, dropped her staff, bent down, and suddenly was holding a thick, leather-bound tome. She tucked it under one arm. "I don't know what you'll do with it."

"What about Rachel? And Max?"

"They'll be returned to you," said Prospera, not looking at her. "Depending."

"Depending?"

Max almost laughed. "The choice."

Prospera smiled. "She knows."

"Why does it have to be a fucking choice?"

"There's always a choice," Prospera said, one hand idly tracing the glyphs written on the book she held. "Most people just don't know when they're making it. You all have that blessing."

_Or a curse._

"What's the choice, then?" asked Chloe. Max leaned into her, holding her close. She didn't want to hear an answer.

"You can leave the door open, or walk through it and lock it behind you."

"What does that mean?"

" _My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore, and they shall be themselves."_

Prospera did not look at them as she spoke. She pulled out the ancient tome, crawling with blue and red light.

" _But this rough magic_

_I here abjure; and, when I have required_

_Some heavenly music,—which even now I do,—_

_To work mine end upon their senses, that_

_This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,_

_Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,_

_And deeper than did ever plummet sound_

_I'll drown my book."_

She tossed the book into the ocean, and like a photograph burning at the edges, the dream broke into pieces.

* * *

"Chloe? Oh god, Chloe!"

She opened her eyes to see Max above her. And beyond her, stretching out into the sky like some huge natural roof, was the tree. Max pulled her up and to her feet.

_It's done? I'm awake? Then where's…_

Rachel hugged her from behind, and Max joined in.

"Thank fuck you're alright," said Chloe, laughing. "And you're walking?!"

Rachel laughed too. "Yeah, I guess…she healed us? What about your leg?"

Chloe looked down at her leg. The jeans were torn where the knife should have been, but the wound was gone, and the knife lay bloodless at her feet.

"Guess we guilted her into it," she said. "Least she could do, honestly."

Max hugged herself, looking nervously at the sky. Chloe followed her gaze up past the ceiling of interwoven branches, towards a sky covered in black clouds. She could smell the wet heat of an oncoming storm.

She should feel worried, she knew, but instead she felt relief. She wasn't in a dream anymore. This felt real. As fucking strange as it was to be so far back in time, it was real.

"Rachel? Are you, you know, Rachel?"

"I think so." She pressed a hand to her face, wiped off a trail of blood from her nose. "My head hurts."

"That's normal," said Chloe. "Right Max? Nosebleeds? Cost of the power?"

Max didn't say anything. She was stepping backwards, her face tilted towards the sky.

"Earth to Max?"

"Chloe, we need to get out of here."

"Yeah Max, I got that. Really ready to get back to the future, too. How, though?"

"The tree," said Rachel. "I remember enough of…being her. This is the source."

"Well, it's definitely hella fucking magical. I touched it and it triggered all that dream palace shit."

"Chloe, it's a lighthouse! The lighthouse!"

"What?"

"We're so far back in time before the lighthouse was built. This isn't on the exact same spot, but it's the same thing. A guide for everything around it. A sign of somewhere safe. This is the heart of Arcadia Bay."

"The source of the powers," whispered Rachel. She took another step closer, hands outstretched.

"Whoa, whoa," said Chloe, putting herself in between Rachel and the tree, "how about we not touch the weird glowing magic tree that trapped us in our dreams, okay?"

"She said she was letting us take control of things from now on," said Max. "This has to be how we do it."

Chloe extended both her hands, palms out. "I can't do anything without you two. Let's try, I don't know, combining our powers? Thinking about getting back?"

"Not back," said Rachel, though she took Chloe's hand. Her grip was strong, safe. "To the heart of everything."

"Rachel's right," said Max, holding onto Chloe's other hand. "We need to pull apart all the realities to keep the storm from following us."

"Fine. We think about the…the source, or whatever." She breathed out slowly, her breath shaky. "Ready?"

"Yes," said Max, right as Rachel nodded.

"Okay then; three, two, one…"

Red pressure, blue light. She thought of centers, of burrowing roots down to a beating heart. She thought of the lighthouse at the edge of time, with every reality sprawling before her. She thought of Max and Rachel and her escaping this, the threads untangled, the storm left to rage down roads and alleys in some other city, flowing through some veins that weren't their own. She thought of blue lights, and butterflies. Of the sound of thunder, and a falling whale. Storms and floods, wildfires and hurricanes. She thought of time, and how to get to where even time flowed backwards.

The tree lit up with blue flames.

Whirling snakes of blue light spread out from the tree, dancing like ribbons caught in the storm, spinning like a tornado. The light sped down into the earth, breaking through mud and stone and burrowing deeper, forming an intricate lattice of light. The winds picked up leaves and tossed from the tree, but whenever they flew close to the beams of light, they moved backwards, reversing and flying back to the tree, caught in a dance. Like the tides.

"This is it," said Rachel, her voice straining to be heard over the winds. Lightning cracked and thunder boomed. Bright lights like veins.

Chloe felt the winds push up against her. She shifted her stance, dug into the earth. Past the trees, she could barely see the dark water of the ocean. Winds gathered in the distant sky.

_The storm. It comes at the end of every story._

"Uh, Rachel? Max? What do we do now?"

Max was saying something, but her voice was drowned out by the noise of the tempest. Chloe took one hesitant step forward, locked herself into place, did it again, slowly, bit by bit.

"What?"

In an instant, a wave of heat passed over everything. Chloe heard a noise like a gunshot, following by the crackle and roar of a wildfire. Lightning had struck one of the trees nearby, and the flames were starting to spread.

Max and Rachel instantly went rigid. Bright blue light poured from their eyes, their mouths. The snakes of blue light shuddered, and then started to expand and spread, forming a dome of hot blue light spreading across the forest.

"MAX! RACHEL!"

The light sped faster, and consumed them.

* * *

All noise cut out.

Chloe opened her eyes. Everything was bathed in blue light, but distant, muted. The flames of the wildfire burned around them. Trees shook their branches into the dome, but everything was silent. There was only the tree, glowing bright. And Rachel and Max, clutching their heads, bleeding from their noses.

Chloe charged towards them, wrapping them both in an enormous hug. "Shit, I was freaking out! What happened? Are you okay?"

"I think so," said Max. Rachel nodded, too stunned to speak. They pulled apart, trying to get a sense of what new strange thing they'd been forced to deal with. In this dome outside of time, surrounded by blue light and red flame, the storm beating at the gates, they saw images floating past them. Doors, or little tears in the fabric of time.

Peering into one, Chloe saw herself tugging at her boot, stuck in the train tracks. In another, Rachel handed her a birthday present, intricately wrapped. Another showed Max and Chloe in bed at the motel.

"It's all the worlds," she said, almost to herself. "All the realities we changed with the power."

Max was at her side. "Just like the lighthouse we saw…we're here, outside of time. All these doors…Chloe, this is the choice! Which world to live in!"

"It's not that easy." Chloe and Max turned to see Rachel by their side. She sighed. "I remember, from…well, being inside my head? Being inside Arcadia Bay's head? Whatever. You can't…you can't just pick a reality and live there, not if you want to stop all the timelines intersecting."

Chloe felt her stomach drop. They were so close to finally being free!

"Then what do we do?" asked Max.

"It's like…it's like…" Rachel reached in the air, grasping for something she couldn't put into words. She tried again. "It's like a tree. Reality branching off into different directions every time we make a change with the power. One reality where the change happens, one where it doesn't. But it's a tree, right? All branches lead back to large branches. And we have three."

"When you got the power," said Max.

"When you did," said Rachel.

They both looked at her.

"And…when I did?"

Rachel nodded. "Right. Me, in the bunker. Max, in the bathroom. And Chloe…when you were in the desert?"

"When we tested out if the power still worked," said Max.

"Why does that count?" asked Chloe. "I mean, Max still had the power. It wasn't like a reality where I got it first. I never saw that one."

Rachel shook her head. "It's still a third attempt. Prospera – or whatever we're calling the thing behind the curtain – gave you the power. She wanted another batch of timeline attempts. She was learning, improvising."

"Okay, so we have three timelines to choose from?"

Suddenly Max's face fell. Chloe could see her start to shake, saw the tears forming on her face. "Max…what's wrong?"

"It's Rachel…if we go back to any of those three timelines, and the powers don't happen…"

_No…_

"That's not…it can't work like that, right? We can just go somewhere…pick another one…we can't…we can figure something out, right?" She paced, Max and Rachel staring at her. "Wait! I know, Rachel's body is here, right, won't she just get teleported?"

"No, Chloe," whispered Max. "We're going back to timelines where we already exist. We have to go back into those bodies. And Rachel…"

Rachel let out a long breath, and gave a slight shrug. "Guess I don't get a ticket back."

"No no no, no, that's not, it can't…" She looked from Max to Rachel, hoping for something, some spark of hope, something to hold on to while everything tore itself apart around her. She felt sick.

"Why do we always have to let the people we love die?! Are we still being fucked with?"

"There's...one other option," Max said. Chloe grabbed her hands, felt her pulse hammering fast.

"What?"

"We keep the doors open. We let all this pass, and we jump somewhere else."

"We keep on running," said Rachel. The three of them stood close to each other, eyes passing from face to face, trying to make the reality they were seeing make some kind of sense. "We don't let the realities separate. We keep making new worlds."

"And the storm?"

"It's always going to be there," said Max, her voice breaking. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "We can't stop it…"

"We might make something good, for a while," said Rachel. "Might be worth trying out."

Max shook her head slowly, tears flowing. "No...Rachel, I'm sorry, but I can't. I can't keep running. I have too many voices in my head, too many memories! If I stay…outside of time, I'm going to go insane. I need to go back!"

Rachel pulled her into a hug. "I know. It's okay. You can go." They lifted their heads, stared at each other. "Sorry we never got to know each other better. And thanks for…for looking for me."

"Me too…and I'm sorry we didn't find you in time."

Rachel kissed her on the cheek. "If you've had the chance, I know you would've saved me." She pulled away.

"I can see why Chloe loves you."

Rachel looked at her, finally.

"Does she? Love me?"

_Is this what the world is? Finding something to hold on to, something good, and having it torn away? And then…getting it back and losing it again? Is this what Rachel is to me? That bright fire that's always on the edge of flicking out?_

_Let me remember as much as I can. Please._

_Rachel saving me at the Firewalk show. Skipping school for her. Telling her my feelings in the junkyard. Throwing myself on the pyre for her and getting expelled. The Tempest show. Our kiss under the streetlights. Holding her on her bed while she processed the lie about her parents. Driving her to the hospital. Promising her I'd find her mom for her. Telling her the truth about her dad. All those days we spent in the junkyard. Getting tattoos. The first time we fucked. The second time. All the times. Getting high at the beach. The shows. Late night confessions. Waking up with her next to me._

_Getting the call from her. Driving away to L.A., leaving everything behind. Finding our first place. Decorating with her. Watching movies on the couch, tangled up in each other. Kissing her, over and over. The parties. The shows. Robbing stores with her. The good moments before everything fell apart._

_There's a lot of things I don't want to remember about her. About us. Let me hold onto those good moments._

"Always."

Suddenly she was in her arms, warm, alive, Rachel Amber, still alive? Still, that never stopped surprising her. She pressed her close, smelling the warmth of her, tasting the salt tears on her face.

_Rachel fucking Amber._

She kissed her, for the last time.

She pulled away, trying not to look at Max. Failing. She saw the second-guessing, the worry. The 'does she love Rachel more than me' etched on her face.

_Max Caulfield._

_My friend. She means so much more to me than that word means, but in the end, it's still true. She's my best friend. Everything is better when she's here, even when the world's literally falling apart around us. She makes me glad to be alive. She makes me remember what it is to be happy. I'm learning new ways of feeling love with her. She knows everything about me. She's seen it all, back when we were kids, and now, through all these realities, through wandering through my own memories. She is the night sky, brilliant and clear and beautiful and endless and part of me._

_Don't let me forget her, whatever happens with this fucking power._

_Playing pirates on the swing-set. Sleepovers and drawing comic books and spilling wine on the floor. Treasure hunts and sword fights. Dreaming about our futures. Watching movies, singing songs. Campfires and marshmallows._

_The way she hugged me when Mom came back through the door with the cops, falling to the floor. All those moments I can't forget, when fear and shame made her ignore me._

_But then, she came back. Saved me in the bathroom. When I saved her from Nathan, pulled her into my car. Discussing superpowers and schemes in the Two Whales. Bottles in the junkyard. Walking across the train tracks holding her hand. The way she pulled the trigger on Frank for me. Sneaking into Blackwell. Our midnight swim in the pool. The quiet perfect morning, waking up next to her, daring her to kiss me and being surprised she did. Pieces together the clues, breaking into the bunker…holding me when we found what was buried in the junkyard. The party, how she stopped me, suddenly telling me all the horrible shit she went through while I was filled with sorrow and hate. Holding her through the storm. Watching the picture float through the sky as Arcadia Bay was destroyed._

_A long drive. A motel kiss. Stories and confessions in the car. Time traveling together. Falling through time, saving my dad. Making that perfect new world. Years with her, going to Blackwell, kissing in corners, Christmases with our families. The band. A whole, brilliant little life._

_And Max Caulfield, the one thing holding it together. Holding her together. Making life worth it, even after everything._

Stay with Rachel and journey through time forever?

Or go with Max, and face one world together?

_There's always a storm, isn't there?_

_And there's always a choice._

But she'd already made it.

"I can't keep running. There will always be other versions of us, right? Living better lives and worse ones. But I…I have to face one. I need a world where I live with what I've done, and…and…move on. With Max."

Rachel's face flickered a moment, and for maybe the first time, Chloe knew exactly what she was feeling. She smiled through the tears. Nodded.

"Okay. I understand."

Chloe took a step forward, pulled Rachel into an embrace. One last time.

"Think we could've worked in the long run?"

Rachel smiled. "I'm going to try to find out."

Chloe swallowed her tears. "I hope you do. Tell her…tell me…I said hi."

A laugh, somewhere outside of time. "I will. You're the real thing, Chloe Price."

"You're amazing," she said. "Fuck, I…I'm sorry, I just…you saved me. You saved me."

Eventually, they pulled apart, and Chloe was face to face with Max.

"Are you sure?" she said, not daring to hope.

Chloe nodded. "Yeah. Here's my choice." She wrapped her arms around Max, pulled her close, hugged her like she was going to dissolve into mist again.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

They pulled apart, still holding hands, as the tears in time floated behind them. Max looked up at her.

"That wasn't the last choice, though."

"I know."

Two doors, now. The first, the world where Rachel got her powers. If they passed through, they'd be right when Rachel died in the bunker. Max wouldn't have even started Blackwell yet. But they'd remember – if this all went according to plan – so Chloe would survive. The timeline would be separate from the others, so the storm wouldn't come. Everyone would live – except Rachel.

The last door, the world where Chloe got her powers. They'd wake up in her car in the desert, in the weeks after Arcadia Bay was destroyed. No more storms, though. Only Max and Chloe, facing the rest of their future, without powers to help or hurt them. But Arcadia Bay would be gone, forever.

"We should go through the first door, right?" asked Max. "It's…that's a better world. Your mom, Warren, Kate…everybody…they'd all be okay."

"We could…we could get Jefferson and Nathan, knowing what we know. They'd be gone for a long time."

It made sense. This was the better world they'd dreamed of. Not perfect, but something better.

Then why did she keep drifting towards the last door?

"All of these worlds are going to keep existing, even if we don't go through, right?"

Max nodded. "Yeah. It's just like…our consciousnesses will…take over our bodies."

"We're still fucking with some other version of ourselves?"

"I don't think there's any other way. I hate it."

_I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry to all of you._

"Max…we know there are other worlds. I know…I know somewhere my mom's still alive. Arcadia Bay is alive. Even Rachel."

She felt Rachel's hand on her shoulder. Realization dawned on Max's face.

"Right. This isn't about saving or dooming another reality."

"This is just about which one we get to live in. And which one we let another version of ourselves live in."

Max breathed out, slowly. "We have to live with what we did. And we shouldn't make some other version of us go through it without knowing."

"Yeah. We'll make it through. We'll remember them, all of them, in every reality. And we'll make ours better the old-fashioned way."

"Because we know."

"Yeah, because we know."

The final door floated before them. Somewhere behind it, hidden in the darkness, she could see her car parked on the side of the highway. The two of them would be inside, taking a selfie, just in case.

She looked at Max. Max looked at her.

"I'll see you on the other side," she said. Max reached up and took her face in her hands, and kissed her, and for a moment, Chloe remembered another time, when this was a goodbye kiss. Somehow, she still felt butterflies.

They broke apart, and Max Caulfield stepped inside the light and vanished.

Chloe turned around for one last look at the girl who saved her first. Rachel Amber stood in the brilliant blue light and waved.

"Bye, Rachel."

Chloe smiled back, and then turned, the door ahead of her.

_This is it. I've made my choice._

She stepped inside the light.

* * *

It was always somewhere in the back of her mind. That thought. A worry, one that never seemed to be worth discussing. But always a possibility, right? Because, that's how time travel works.

A split in the river, in the thread, in the branch. That's what happens when you change time. You multiply timelines, break everything into two.

One where you time travel, where you change things, where you do what you were trying to do.

And the other.

The leftover.

Where nothing happens.

Where you stay in the same place.

The extra one.

The unresolved timeline.

The one where someone is left, confused, reaching out into empty space, the power failing.

She's not the only one.

Every time someone changes time, there must be another.

An endless spread of worlds where things didn't work out.

This all makes sense, as much as anything does. But it does not help her. It doesn't make it any easier for Chloe Price to step through the door and have it lead nowhere. It doesn't help her when she realizes what has happened, or in this case, what has not happened. It doesn't console her when she falls to her knees, when the image on the door shows another Max, and another Chloe, reconciling, safe in their one, imperfect world together.

What does console her, as she heaves, as she cries, as she realizes that whatever other Max she ever finds, trapped in an endless series of realities, won't be the same one she's been with…what consoles her then?

Who. The question is 'who consoles her?'

Rachel Amber holds her, lets her cry against her, rocks her slowly, watching the flames curl around the edges of their pocket of time, watches as the storm – the last storm and the first storm – consumes this new timeline, this branch back at the beginning. Who knows what brave new world will be made here, when its creators leave?

Because they do leave. Because Chloe knows that if she tries to step through the portal again, it will only make yet another world, and another Max. One who she could love, but one who isn't hers. Not in the way she needs.

Because, as her tears dry, and she sinks into the arms of Rachel Amber, she smiles. Because another Chloe, the same Chloe as her, if she lets herself think of it this way, the original Chloe to which she is just a Replicant, _that_ Chloe…she won. Her and Max will have their one, imperfect world. And she can watch them, and know that in all of the endless realities, she's happy in so many of them. There are so many Williams and Joyces and Rachels and Maxes…and Chloes.

And so she takes hold of Rachel Amber's hand, and watches the blue light dance between them. This one door, even now receding from her, is closed. But there are so many new doors to open. And this Rachel, this one is hers. Maybe they'd get their chance to try.

After all, they have nothing but time.


	25. Till the Dregs of the Storm Be Passed

She stepped inside the light.

There was a car on the side of the road, damp with the memory of a drowning.

But Chloe Price stood on solid ground.

_It worked?_

"Chloe?"

_I'll never get tired of hearing her voice._

"Max?"

She was here, and then they were in each others' arms, and she was solid and real and alive. Chloe could feel the sting of tears in her eyes as they kissed, as all the memories of all the different Max's whirled in her head like a tornado.

_There's only her now. Just Max._

"Max, are you…" she fumbled with her words. It still felt uncomfortable to talk about; the memory of the knife-pain of that frozen beach coming back to her in an echo. An ache. Max had lied to her, used her powers, built up a mind made of who knew how many others. A legion of Maxs, all desperate to find their Chloe.

"I remember them," she said, slowly, her eyes darting back and forth in memory, as if she was searching her own head for other guests. "But I only hear myself. I think I'm…I guess I'm one person again?"

"It's pretty fucking weird."

"Par for the course with us, wouldn't you say?"

Chloe smiled, laughing, and then Max began laughing too, both of them still holding onto each other like an anchor.

_No one else could ever understand me. Seriously, no one living understands what it's like to have different memories in the same head. Except Max. My Max._

A few moments passed, each of them grappling with their own thoughts, each steadying themselves like soldiers at peace for the first time in years.

"No flood," Max said, turning around in circles slowly. "No storm."

Above them the sky swelled blue, like an ocean. A few birds cut past in a V-shape, their distant cries echoing down for miles. Some small animal shifted a few feet away, darted back into a hole. The air tasted wet and hot.

"And your powers?"

Max looked up at her, biting her lip. She reached forward a hand into the emptiness, held it there for a long time, then pulled it back. She shook her head, smiling, wordless.

_They're gone._

Chloe threw her arm around Max, pulled her close. They craned their necks and stared up at the wide gulf of the sky. Somewhere in the distance a car rolled past, faint music blaring.

They were stranded on the side of the highway in the Nevada desert, a few weeks after their town – and everyone in it – was destroyed. They had no jobs, no degrees, no money, and now even their car had died, probably for good. Chloe could see their future rolling out into the distance, as empty and endless as the desert. No powers to fix their mistakes. No other worlds to jump into. No great beautiful being watching them, testing them, hoping for their victory.

Max must have been thinking the same thing. "It's just gonna be us from now on. No powers, no storms, no…no Rachel."

"Yeah. That's what we wanted, right?"

Max nodded, her hair brushing against Chloe's chin. "It's just so…normal, now. I mean, compared to everything. No more jumping through realities. Just life, going forward."

"It's kinda scary."

"Hella scary."

Max turned to her, kissing her cheek as she leaned in closer. "I think we'll be alright. I…I know what I want now. I know who I am." She squeezed her hand. "Who you are."

_Who am I?_

Somewhere, there was a beach, and a whale falling from the sky. Somewhere, a host of Chloe Prices looked up at her and smiled.

* * *

That night they called a tow truck to carry off Chloe's long-suffering car. The driver whistled low when he got a look at it, and asked them how they'd managed to get it this far.

"It probably should've died a long time ago," he said. Chloe and Max shared a knowing look.

Chloe rested a hand on her old junker as it was raised up onto the truck. "Thanks, pal. Got me through a whole lot of shit. Guess I knew you'd always find your way back to a junkyard in the end."

Max put a hand on her shoulder. "It was a good car."

"The best car."

The driver dropped them off at a nearby motel, gave them a time and number to go pick it up if it was salvageable. Chloe tipped him a few of her precious dollars, and checked them in. Once they'd flopped onto the bed and washed their faces, Max ordered a pizza and the two ate dinner in the room, not speaking much, lost in thought. The room's clock ticked. Outside, cars zoomed across the highway.

_What are we gonna do now?_

They were back at the place they'd started from, though they'd been through a whole lot more in the meantime. She wasn't worried about Max leaving her, not after everything they'd gone through, but she was still left with that gaping question of what to do next. No powers, no money, precious few friends and family. Max could probably get into college, but for her…

Max nestled closer on the bed, leaning her head against Chloe as the motel TV droned on through some old action movie.

_I don't have to figure it all out right away._

She wished she could ask someone for advice. It felt like just yesterday that she was at home, going to Blackwell with Max, and she could just come home to ask her parents for advice. A jagged pain shot through her at the thought.

_They're not here anymore. Not in this reality. You don't have any family left._

_Well...maybe..._

Later that night, with Max holding her hand, she called David.

The next day, he rented a car and met them at their motel. When they opened the door, he was already crying, his eyes sunken, his shoulders slumped. Chloe surprised both herself and David by hugging him. He held on for a long time, as Max ushered them in and locked the door.

After they both fumbled through something resembling a greeting, Max and Chloe sat down on the bed and David pulled up the desk chair and began to tell them what happened. They'd had hoped that the destruction wasn't total, that of course it couldn't have wiped everything out, but David's reports were grim. He'd managed to find his way into the bunker to save Victoria Chase and arrest Jefferson, but no one else in the town proper had made it.

"Chloe, I've been through a lot of hells in my life, but that was the worst. We could hear that something bad was happening out there, something apocalyptic, so we had to buckle down and wait in that…evil place. Ms. Chase was scared out of her mind, kept asking me what was going on, and I had no clue what to tell her. And Jefferson…I'd managed to incapacitate him and restrain him, but eventually he woke up. I had to sit through the storm that…" he paused, took a deep breath, continued, his voice only a little shaky. "Destroyed my town and my wife, while a scared girl sobbed and an evil man stared me in the face and smiled."

Chloe shifted on the bed. She'd seen him dead, once. Buried him in the junkyard, watched as she shoveled dirt onto his face. He wasn't smiling then. That would have to be enough.

Beside her, Max spoke up. "Why didn't you kill him?"

David looked surprised. "I wanted to, Max, believe me. I still want to, every day, especially knowing what he did to Rachel…but I'm not a soldier anymore. I don't want to kill another human being. Even if it's someone like Jefferson." He took a long sip of water. "Besides, death would be too easy for that sonuvabitch."

Death didn't claim Mark Jefferson in this reality. Instead, he found himself at South Fork Forest Camp prison in Tillamook, doing manual labor in the forests of Oregon. Maybe he could put the rest of his life to good use, trying to reclaim some of the forests whose destruction he'd survived.

_Same as me._

"Where are you staying?" asked Max, to cut through the silence.

"Friend on the force was outta town during…it. We're at his folks'."

"What are you gonna do?" asked Chloe.

_That's always the question, isn't it? Never used to think about it._

David shook his head slowly. "I don't know, Chloe. I don't know. I thought I'd already gone through my worst days, started a new life. I…I don't know how to do it again." He wiped his eyes with his arm, then looked at her. "What'll you two do? Have you seen Max's family yet?"

Max looked away. "No, not yet. I called them," she added when she saw David's face, "and said I was alright." She drifted off, her eyes distant, so Chloe cut in.

"We'll go see them soon. Rest a bit, I think."

David looked at them for long time, until it became uncomfortable and Chloe looked away. She knew he was trying to understand why they wouldn't have gone to Seattle, why Max wouldn't be scrambling to get to safety and family and home. That's all David wanted now.

_It's all I wanted. Mom…_

Eventually, all three of them collapsed into silence. What more could they say to each other? After several more minutes, David gave a loud, obviously intentional sigh, the kind adult men often did to signal that they were about to leave.

"Well, I guess I'd better leave you to it. Do whatever you need to do. God knows we all need some…time to process." He pushed himself out of the chair and put on his jacket. Max sat on her chair, hands tucked under her arms, watching him leave in silence.

"Yeah," Chloe said.

David took another long look at them, almost shaking his head in confusion, before coughing into his hand and turning to leave.

"David, wait."

He stiffened, his hand hovering over the doorknob.

_That's the first time you've called him that. At least without being forced to by…_

She didn't believe in an afterlife. Here, in this reality, her mom was gone. But her mom was still alive, somewhere else. She hoped that if she'd been there to see this, she would've smiled.

"You don't have to…I mean…I know we aren't exactly friends. We both have a lot of shit to unpack. With everything."

She felt tears on her cheeks, and Max's fingers sliding into her hand.

"But…could we…you know…"

David turned around, his face taut. He swallowed. He looked like he was trying to speak, but didn't know what to say.

This was her step-douche. He was a misogynist at best, a raging asshole, a blundering soldier with shitty politics and shitty emotional range. He'd made her life hell for a long time.

And he saved Max.

And he loved her mom. That might be enough to keep something lasting, right? That might be enough.

_Fuck it._

"Stay in touch. You don't have to…to disappear. We have to…we have to help each other remember her."

David Madsen smiled through his tears.

"I'd like that, Chloe."

She laughed. "And, well…we need a ride."

* * *

A few days later, David came back to drive them to Seattle, and to the Caulfields. It was surreal, seeing Max's parents again in a reality where they didn't spend so many years together. These versions of the Caulfields didn't really know who she was anymore, hadn't experienced Chloe and Max coming out to them a few years ago. All they knew was that their daughter had narrowly escaped the worst natural disaster any of them had heard about, their former home had been obliterated, and her old childhood friend had driven her out of the storm and back to them.

After they'd finished holding onto Max and crying, Ryan and Vanessa turned towards her, pulling her into the embrace too.

"Thank you, Chloe. We don't…we don't know how to say thank you enough. If you need anything, we'll always be here for you two."

All she could do was withstand their hugs and their gratitude and their sympathy, and say "thanks." It felt like such an empty word, like it wasn't strong enough to bear everything she wanted it to.

David stayed for dinner, and the five of them ordered Max's favorite takeout Thai and sat in the dining room. Ryan talked the most, trying to keep things light and casual, asking about how the drive was, checking in on them, telling recent family stories, while Vanessa burst into tears every few minutes. Max was crying too, all while Chloe and David sat awkwardly in silence. The Caulfields didn't know how to grapple with their grief, and so they kept their attention on their daughter.

The two of them stayed with the Caulfields for almost three months. Max didn't even attempt to get into a college, but no one tried to make her. They'd set both of them up with grief counselors, but they'd proven themselves well-meaning but pretty useless. They couldn't talk about what had really happened, and eventually the doctors gave up trying to uncover the truth behind their obvious evasions. Still, they had each other. Maybe it wasn't enough, but it was necessary.

She did get Christmas with the Caulfields after all, though this time it was in Seattle, and instead of her parents, David showed up. It was an awkward time, and did more to stir up her own twisted feelings of guilt and sadness than anything, but the food was good, and they were safe and cared for, and she could see that something of a life might be built from these pieces. One day.

Time moved forward, the only direction it ever would again.

They didn't stay in any place for too long. In the tail end of winter, as the snows began to melt and the hint of something new glimmered under wet earth, they made their exit from Seattle. After a tearful goodbye (and several loud arguments over the last few weeks), they'd piled into Chloe's new (used) car with a few suitcases of clothes, Max's modest inheritance, a new (used) laptop Max had gotten for Christmas, and a new kit of car repair tools for Chloe. It had been nice to spend the time they'd gotten in the protective arms of a family, with nothing to do but rest and recover, but they both new they couldn't solve their own regrets or answer that question of "what next" without leaving. It was the road trip she'd always dreamed of, and this time, there'd be no settling in L.A. Not permanently at least. First up was Portland.

* * *

She could remember the other realities she'd lived; the perfect world in Blackwell with Max, her time in L.A. with Rachel, and all the strange pathways she'd jumped to while trying to escape the storm. They'd pulled apart the timelines, so at least these ones they'd made before would be free from the storm, even if Rachel Amber, lost somewhere outside of time, would make even new worlds that would be under threat.

The other memories helped, but they didn't stop the grief. In this reality, the only thing that would exist for them again, Arcadia Bay and most of the people in it were gone. The sharpest wounds of regret had mostly faded to moments of tender sadness, but they never vanished. In dreams, they'd come back to her, and she'd wake up in tears, screaming into her pillow. Max started smoking weed with her regularly. She had her own nightmares, and Chloe would hold her as she shook in the dark. Some nights they shut out the rest of the world, drank too much, and talked about realities forever out of reach. Other times she'd come home to see Max on the balcony, staring out the window. She'd come up to take her in her arms, and Max would put up a hand to keep her away.

It was the price Max had paid to have Chloe back. Even if the mere fact of being given that choice was itself a terrible curse, even if she'd had no real other way, even if Arcadia Bay lived in a million other realities, even if Max found a way to keep on going, there were some regrets that Chloe couldn't help her wipe out. Some things seep into you, stain you forever. Even if you'd do them again.

Chloe stopped cutting her hair, maybe because she hoped it would bring her closer to the Chloe in the perfect reality, the one where her and Max had gotten to be together and in love and whole. The blue dye began to fade, turning into a kind of yellow-green. She had had enough of blue for a long time.

She'd also had the tattoo sleeve on her right arm blacked out, covered up entirely. Whenever people asked her about it, which some people did despite it being pretty socially dicey to ask about people's tattoo origins, she'd just say: "it reminds me not to forget."

She had trouble putting into words exactly what she meant, but Max understood. She'd seen the hardened blood pooling around her arm, back in that strange place in their dreams when they'd found each other. It was a way of remembering what they'd lost, but also to remind them that everything they'd experienced was real. It may have been in memories of realities that no longer existed, or that existed in some other space they could never reach, or in some twisted version of their own dreams, trapped somewhere outside of time, but it was _real_. They'd saved each other and everyone, and they'd doomed each other and everyone.

Max took the opposite approach, and ended up getting her own tattoo to remember everything by. A blue butterfly on her wrist, of course.

"It's what started all of this," she'd said.

"Still though, that's what you want to remember?"

"I think it was you, somehow. Your spirit."

Chloe shrugged. "I always thought I'd be something cooler, like a hawk or a mountain lion."

"And that's why you're a butterfly."

* * *

Portland, then down to Los Angeles for a time, then a brief stop in San Francisco. Chloe called up Steph, who was at Stanford and had greeted her with a quick hug and a quiet nod. They spent the night with her at her dorm, and even played a game of D&D with her girlfriend, Riley. They called Mikey together, asked him how he was doing at school in Denver. It was still surreal, remembering their different friendships across time, realizing that for these versions of them, Chloe hadn't done much to stay in touch over the years. She'd have to try to make it up now.

One day while Steph was in class, they'd headed out into the city. Max took her to an art gallery where her own picture had hung in some lost timeline. Right now it was a temporary exhibit about family, and the walls were covered in everything from straightforward portraits, to collages of diary entries and photographs, to avant-garde sculptures stapled into the walls.

"You'll be up here eventually," she'd told her, as Max stared with barely-concealed sadness at all the photographs and exhibits, none of which were hers. Max hadn't believed her, but she was right, in the end. It would just take a few more years.

From there they headed east, settling down in big cities and small communities, staying for weeks or months, taking odd jobs and meeting new people. Chloe surprised herself with her own talkativeness, and eventually they'd amassed a widespread network of punks and hippies, art students and reporters, musicians and activists, all who'd offer a couch or a place to stay or a dinner if they needed it. Even Max, who seemed to become even more quiet than she'd used to be, found herself getting drawn into long conversations if they were about art.

Chloe took random gigs working at venues, using her knowledge from the timeline in L.A., and sometimes, when they stayed a city for longer than usual, would find work as a mechanic. She learned quickly, and managed to keep her new car in good enough shape for its many voyages across the country. They'd pieced together something of a life, though it wasn't anything like they'd imagined when they were younger. Some nights they barely saw each other, as Chloe had to work late and Max woke up early. Some days she went without thinking about time travel or alternate realities or anything other than the work she had to do.

Still, every Christmas, they made their way back to Seattle to see Max's family. It was clear that they didn't entirely approve of their daughter's new nomad lifestyle, but they never said anything, never tried to stop them. Perhaps they were good enough parents to know that this was what she needed, what she wanted. Max's life didn't have to look like anything they valued; only that it was a life, and that Max needed something like it to function.

As for Chloe, David was her only real family left, besides Max. They kept in touch every week or so; they'd tell him about the new place they were living, about what Max's latest art project was, about how Chloe was getting along. After the Supreme Court decision in 2015, they eventually told him about their own relationship. Unlike her parents, he hadn't had a clue, but he seemed happy for them, even if he rarely mentioned it and turned red whenever the topic was brought up.

He'd tell them about his own journeys, about how he'd pulled himself out a drunken stupor and gotten sober, about how he'd flirted with religion but ultimately found it wasn't right for him. Eventually, in some strange twist of fate, he told them how he'd found his way to some small commune out in the desert. They'd welcomed him, despite his background.

"We're all running from something," they'd told him. "Sometimes, we need to find somewhere safe to heal."

David found healing in his little community of Away; Chloe and Max tried to find it on the road. And often, they found it, curled up together on a cheap couch, watching a movie and catching each other's eyes every now and then, as if they'd vanish if they looked away. The rest of the world careened around her, but Max made sense, kept her from the darkness, helped her put the pieces of herself together into something she admired.

They still held hands as much as they could. One night, Max drifted off early, her hand still in Chloe's. Chloe looked at, breathing softly, her mouth open in a ridiculous snore, and remembered a night lit by twin blue lights dancing between them. What if it happened again? What caused it the first time?

And maybe they could've taken each other along back before.

She fell asleep, dreaming of her parents, somewhere else, dancing in the kitchen on their anniversary. Christmas music played in the background, and Max leaned against her, shaking a snow globe and laughing. Ryan and Vanessa whirled in, carrying presents and trays of food. Steph and Riley popped open a bottle of wine, as David carved up a turkey. Somehow, she knew it was a dream, knew that it wasn't real, but it felt so intense, so overwhelming positive and good. This life was out there for some other Chloe.

"I hope you love it," she said in the dream. The others smiled as if she said something normal.

"I do," came the voice of another Chloe beside her. Rachel stood behind this Chloe, grinning at her, looking radiant and happy and alive.

She woke up in tears, smiling.

* * *

Five years after the storm, people started to rebuild. David had left his newfound desert home after a few years, after they'd gone through their own difficulties, and had turned his attention to the only other thing he knew. The five of them – Chloe, Max, David, Victoria, and Jefferson - were the only ones to survive the storm itself, but there were other people from Arcadia Bay who weren't in the town when it was destroyed. They'd sat on their grief for years too, hoping it would coalesce into something physical. But five years of a wasteland was too long. The Arcadia Bay Restoration Project, financed by none other than Kristine Prescott, who'd inherited the wealth of her family, broke ground on October 11th, 2018.

Chloe and Max were there, arm in arm, as David Madsen stuck a shovel in the earth while rain poured around them. The scattered families of Arcadia Bay clapped as the lights of cameras flashed. Chloe clapped along with them, even if part of it felt hollow. How could it ever be enough? Maybe something new would grow here, like a forest after a wildfire, but it couldn't ever be Arcadia Bay, not as they knew it.

But something would remember. She let her gaze drift on past David, past the construction site and the machines, past the crowds, out into the mist of that cold autumn day. The debris had been cleared out already, and the once beautiful forests of her home were gone. But the bay was still there, water flowing in and out. Deer would find their way back into the wreckage. Ravens would fly over, hoping one day there would be something to land on. Maybe there'd even be fields of butterflies.

David found them after the ceremony, and Max and her parents broke off to talk to Victoria Chase, who was enjoying the limelight despite the circumstances. She gave him a quick hug.

"You did good, kid," she said, grinning.

David shook his head, trying not to smile in turn. "I don't know. I keep thinking...maybe we should all just move on, not try to keep bringing back the old things we loved."

"This _is_ moving on. New Arcadia Bay won't be the same thing. It's...it's doing something good. You're doing something good."

He nodded slowly, as if he was hoping she'd convince him. "Is it still gonna be a no from you two? Not interested in moving here?"

"Maybe one day," she said, surprising herself. "Not yet though."

He nodded. "Whatever you need to do. I...I need to do this. For myself. And for everybody. But mostly for her."

She swallowed back tears. She was good at that now.

"I think she's proud of you."

David raised his eyebrows. "I didn't think you believed in heaven."

"No, I'm still a radical leftist heathen, but...I dunno, maybe there's some other reality where this didn't happen. Maybe she's alive there. And everybody else."

"Now that's a nice thought, Chloe. I'd like to believe that."

Later, she found Max staring at the memorial wall, one of the first few structures of the new town. She saw the names etched into the stone, so many of them, rising and falling like waves. She knew what Max was thinking, even now. That even if they were alive somewhere else, that even if she shouldn't have been force to make that decision - they died because of her.

_That's not true, Max. They died for me._

She took a deep breath. She was alive, against all odds, against the wishes of fate itself. All of the names blurred before her.

_Thank you. I'm sorry._

She stood next to Max, followed her gaze towards the names. Warren Graham.

"You know, there's probably a reality where you two got together," Chloe said.

Max laughed, then wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I think you're right. If you weren't there..."

Chloe raised an imaginary glass. It felt a little wrong, maybe, but from what she'd known of Warren, he'd probably have grinned at it. "To Warren and Max Graham, somewhen else, with all their little nerd babies."

Max burst into tears.

"Wait, hey, I'm sorry, I didn't..."

"It's okay," she said, letting out something that sounded halfway between a sob and a laugh, "it's okay. I just...I think you're right, and that's weird." She wiped her face again, then took a few deep breaths.

"Is this ever going to not hurt?" Max said, after another minute of silence.

Chloe felt the words forming on her tongue, then bit them back. She knew the answer.

"I don't think so. But that's the point, right?"

Max nodded, sniffing, then moved on towards the other names. Chloe knew the ones she'd go to. Kate. Dana. Alyssa. All the friends she'd made so quickly. Chloe let her look in silence as she moved away, letting her fingers trace the words Joyce Madsen along the way.

She raised an imaginary glass to Frank Bowers, and an imaginary joint to Justin. And then she was at the beginning of the wall.

Whatever was left of her body hadn't survived the storm. Officially, they knew she died earlier, that someone else was to blame other than a freak accident of nature. But Chloe and Max had pushed for her to be mentioned. And so there she was, right between James Amber and Rose Amber.

_You're not dead. You're traveling through time with some other Chloe. Have you found a way to even further back? Seen any dinosaurs?_

She looked around, wondering if maybe Rachel was watching her right now, through some gap in space and time.

_I'll light something on fire for you. Rachel fucking Amber._

"God, I miss you," she said softly.

In the distance, the waves crashed on the shore. Again and again.

* * *

Chloe Price took a walk on the beach.

She pulled a joint from her pocket, rolling it between her fingers. She'd given up smoking cigarettes a couple years back, but if there was ever a time to get a little blazed, it was now. She inhaled, and blew out smoke slowly, letting it float over the coastline and fade above the water like mist.

It was October 11th, 2023, five years after the Restoration Project began, and ten years after the storm. Ten years after her and Max had walked out of a portal in time and lost their powers. She was twenty-nine, but felt a few years older than that. The faint memories of other lives still clung to her like wisps of fog. Like friendly ghosts.

To her left, small trees grew in neat rows, a far cry from the old, thick trees that had covered this area back before the storm. At first glance, the ocean to her right was the same as it always was. Dark waters, waves crashing ashore, the orange setting sun almost fallen behind the horizon. But then she noticed the jetties reaching out a regular intervals, long stone barriers keeping erosion at bay.

She kicked off her boots and socks, and dug her toes into the sand. It was cold, but the setting sun warmed them to a kind of bracing chill. She walked out onto the stone jetty, placing one foot before the other, enjoying the feeling of cold rock underneath her feet.

It felt like being a kid again, when every trip to the beach meant another story of pirates and adventure. Back then she could just enjoy a day by the ocean without other thoughts creeping in, without those little reminders that the rest of the world wouldn't wait for her. She'd been all too aware that the world kept going lately. Max would still sometimes wake up crying, but it was only about their own sins and memories about half the time. The other times she was worried about the future, about a world seemingly spinning closer and closer to disaster.

"I hope you're right," Prospera had said. But she hadn't believed them. She'd tried to give them some way to change their fates, to prove humanity was worth something, and she'd ended up giving up just because Chloe and Max and Rachel were too fucking stubborn to succeed or completely fail on their own.

Chloe wouldn't let herself get too caught up in the maelstrom of shit spinning everywhere else, even if Max still spent long nights swiping at her phone. But she wasn't free of everything, either. Money, as usual, was tight. She hadn't stolen anything, not since the powers were gone, but the temptation was always there. Her and Max were good, and they'd found ways to make enough without selling their souls, but they were still always on the move, afraid to set down roots, afraid – maybe – that a storm would come calling if they made any one place their home. She didn't even want to think about retirement, or what would happen if they got sick, or in a car crash.

She'd traded the horrors of time travel and a madman for the horrors of the world. She couldn't lie to herself and pretend she didn't sometimes regret it. But only sometimes. There was enough that was fucking incredible about this world, about this life, that the regret would slink away every time. She had Max, and David, and Steph and Riley and her friends. She was good at things, and felt comfortable in her own skin. She liked this Chloe Price, this one version of her who'd been born from the maelstrom of other Chloes, forged from memories and regrets and a lot of time travel. She took a deep breath and sighed.

Her thinking was interrupted by the familiar sound of a camera clicking behind her. Max Price crouched at the end of the jetty by the sand, bundled up in a pea coat and scarf, the setting sun glinting off the ring on her finger as she held her old camera. A small rectangular photo printed out, and she took it and shook it around without a second thought.

Chloe reached for the picture and Max handed it to her with practiced ease. She recognized herself, her hair long and dyed black with an undercut, wearing her black coat and red scarf, her feet bare and white in the fading orange light.

"Not bad," she said, passing it back.

"I'll call it, Captain Bluebeard _In Cognito_."

"It seems my wife still can't come up with good names. I'm cursed."

Max slipped her hands under Chloe's arm, nestled herself closer. They both looked out into the waters behind him, the sun slipping ever downwards, burning bright orange.

"How long are we going to stay here?" Max asked, her voice quiet.

"I don't know, I could do another hour."

"No, I mean, Arcadia Bay. Honestly, I never thought I'd be back. For longer than a couple nights at least. It feels a little wrong. Like I don't deserve to be here."

"None of us fucking deserve anything. Maybe you don't, but you're doing good here. That's got to be…maybe not enough, but something." She passed Max the joint, and she took it for a moment. "Let's see how your exhibit does. Help David and Marisa around the house. Maybe my garage'll take off."

Max nodded, her head underneath Chloe's chin. "I think it will. So we're here for a bit then?"

"Yeah. For a little while at least."

They said nothing for a while. Chloe let her mind go blank. It was just the bay, and Max next to her, and the gentle sound of waves and the autumn wind. Two hearts beating.

A splash came from the water.

Max's voice. "Don't move, this'll be perfect!"

Chloe didn't move. She never wanted to move again. Beside her, Max felt solid and warm and alive. She wouldn't always be. She could die in a car crash on their drive to David's house. Another storm could come and wreck everything. She could fade out of time, falling between cracks, and Chloe would be left adrift again.

But for now, she was here, and beside her, and despite everything, Arcadia Bay was starting to come back to life. The people who made it what had it been were gone, or almost all of them. But new life would come here. The fires of California, the floods and riots to come, she could taste it all in that evening air. Somewhere, Mark Jefferson still lived, the devil brought back to Earth. Nothing was certain. Nothing was perfect.

Except this moment. She could find her utopia here, just for a little while.

The camera clicked.

They'd hang that picture in their home, next to all the others Max had taken to document Arcadia Bay's slow, struggling steps at another life.

_Max and Chloe, caught in the golden hour, sitting on the stone jetty and holding hands. The orange sun blazing in the background, illuminating the enormous fin of a whale, breaking through the dark waters._


	26. By Accident Most Strange

_An ISLAND._

_Enter RACHEL and CHLOE, unchanged._

RACHEL: Now my charms are all o'erthrown

And what strength I have's mine own,

Which is most faint. Now, 'tis true,

I must be here confined by you,

Or sent with Chloe. Let me not

Since I have my freedom got

And pardoned both the lovers, dwell

In this fair city by your spell,

But release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands.

CHLOE: This is the part where you're supposed to clap.

RACHEL: Gentle breath of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails,

Which was to please. Now I want

Powers to enforce, art to enchant

And my ending is despair

Unless I be relieved by prayer,

Which pierces so that it assaults

Mercy itself and frees all faults.

CHLOE: Seriously, she needs you to tell her

That she did a great job of telling you

About all the fucked-up shit that happened

To the three of us in all those timelines.

RACHEL: As you from crimes would pardoned be

Let your indulgence set me free.

_CHLOE claps._

RACHEL: Thank you, thank you, you're too kind.

CHLOE: Wow, finally, I can talk like a regular person again.

RACHEL: You don't miss it? The iambic pentameter, the rhythm and poetry of Shakespeare?

CHLOE: I like you doing it. I've had enough acting for a while.

RACHEL: That's fair.

_RACHEL and CHLOE sit on a fallen LOG._

CHLOE: Rach?

RACHEL: Yes, Chloe?

CHLOE: I have some questions.

RACHEL: Ah, I thought so. Are they about time travel? Because I still don't understand all the rules. It's not the sort of thing that even has rules.

CHLOE: Kinda. The storm was sort of caused by all the different timelines getting all tangled and fucked up together?

RACHEL: More or less.

CHLOE: And every time we made any big time travel change, the realities branched again, one where we did it, and one where we didn't?

RACHEL: Right.

CHLOE: And I made the decision to go into the portal with Max, but it worked for her and not for me, as far as this version of me knows?

RACHEL: I think so.

CHLOE: And there's another version of Max and Chloe who both made it through that portal? And then another where Max got left behind? And another where none of us made it?

RACHEL: Stands to reason.

CHLOE: Shit. That's a lot of fucking timelines.

RACHEL: There are a lot.

CHLOE: So it never really ends, does it?

RACHEL: What?

CHLOE: You know, all of this? You - or Prospera - talked about this being "the last of our sea-sorrow." Like, the last bit of time traveling shit we'd get into, and then we'd settle down and have our happily ever after or whatever. But you and I, we're still hopping around in time, trying to keep the storm from finding us.

RACHEL: You're right, I guess. There's always another Max and another Chloe and another Rachel. On and on into infinity. At least we're immortal, in a way.

CHLOE: Well if that's true, then I have an idea.

RACHEL: Go ahead.

CHLOE: In the timeline where Max and I left Arcadia Bay, something happened to me while we were lying in bed.

RACHEL: That happens to you a lot when you're in bed with pretty girls.

CHLOE: Haha, very funny. No, something, you know, Weird. Time travel powers and shit. I saw the other Max, the one who sacrificed me to save the town, and I could sort of interact with her, like...like a ghost.

RACHEL: That's...really strange.

CHLOE: Yeah. And I don't know how that fits into any of this. We can jump back in time to where our bodies were, timelines split into branches, the storm comes when timelines get tangled up, and all three of us can push us into a weird place outside of time. But this never happened again.

RACHEL: Like I said, Chloe, time is fucking weird. Maybe it was an accident, just a glitch or something.

CHLOE: Maybe. I just...it would be really cool to see the timeline where we had all our memories from all this, but the storm didn't happen.

RACHEL: The one where I died?

CHLOE: Yeah...the second door. Obviously not to live there, that was the whole point, I don't want to take over the mind of another Chloe, even if we're basically the same, but like...to see it.

RACHEL: A world where everyone was saved. Except me and your dad?

CHLOE: Yeah, that world. Not perfect, obviously. But pretty good. That Chloe is probably pretty happy, and Arcadia Bay's still around.

_RACHEL sits up._

RACHEL: Then let's go try it out.

CHLOE: What? How?

RACHEL: Do I look like I know?

CHLOE: I mean, a little, yeah.

RACHEL: Well I don't. But we're beautiful, magical beings who can bend the laws of space and time, so we have nothing better to do than to try.

CHLOE: Okay...well, it worked when Max and I held hands.

RACHEL: You do that a lot.

CHLOE: I mean, it's kind of my thing. Feels nice.

_RACHEL and CHLOE hold hands._

RACHEL: Alright, hands held. Now what?

CHLOE: I mean, we can try thinking about it a lot? You...um...it's the moment you...die, with Nathan, and then Max and the other me wake up, with all our memories of all this shit, and we…

RACHEL: Go to David?

CHLOE: Fuck. Probably. Yeah, we go to David, he catches Jefferson and Nathan, they go to jail, the storm doesn't come...and then I don't fucking know. I try to find a job? Max finishes at Blackwell?

RACHEL: You're not making it easy to imagine the exact world.

CHLOE: I dunno. Anything could happen. That's the fun part. Alright, I've got something. You ready?

RACHEL: Time for a little Christmas Carol ghost magic.

_BLUE LIGHT swirls around them, and the Curtain falls._

* * *

_The LIGHTHOUSE, perched atop ARCADIA BAY. The GOLDEN HOUR of an AUTUMN afternoon. OTHER CHLOE and OTHER MAX, somewhat older with longer hair, huddle by the lighthouse door, OTHER CHLOE hunched over, OTHER MAX keeping watch.  
_

OTHER CHLOE: Damnit, I thought I could…

OTHER MAX: Hurry up!

OTHER CHLOE: I'm trying, I'm trying…

_A lock clicks._

OTHER CHLOE: Fuck yes, nat 20, Chloe Price is a master thief!

OTHER MAX: She's pretty loud for a master thief.

OTHER CHLOE: Fuck you.

OTHER MAX: Later tonight.

_They climb to the top of the lighthouse. Enter CHLOE and RACHEL, off to the distance, watching._

OTHER MAX: I'll never get tired of this view.

OTHER CHLOE: It's not bad, I'll give it that.

OTHER MAX: They're alive. This place is alive. Warren and Kate and Dana still come to visit, I can go to the Two Whales and see your mom, even say hi to Frank and Pompidou. Years later and it still freaks me out.

OTHER CHLOE: Yeah, I know. Fucking weird, but in the best way. Max, I'm really trying not to fuck this up. My life, this second, or third, or millionth chance that I've got. I want a life with you. A real life.

OTHER MAX: I believe in us. And in you - a year or two and you'll have your degree!

OTHER CHLOE: Just a bit behind Maxine Caulfield, college graduate and real adult human.

OTHER MAX: A degree in photography isn't really much. It's just some connections.

OTHER CHLOE: You had a real exhibit! I went there! It was awesome!

OTHER MAX: You're just saying that because you were the subject of like half my photos.

OTHER CHLOE: Just because that's true doesn't mean it wasn't objectively awesome. I'm very photogenic, it turns out.

OTHER MAX: Learned a lot from Rachel, huh?

OTHER CHLOE: Seriously.

_OTHER MAX and OTHER CHLOE stare out the lighthouse towards the town of Arcadia Bay, filled with people and cars and the sounds of life._

OTHER CHLOE: I hope she's okay. Traveling through time.

OTHER MAX: Me too. I wonder what better world's she making.

OTHER CHLOE: Maybe she's stopped by in the best world, kept the storm from coming, and we're still in that band and you're still a hot punk.

OTHER MAX: I could bring back the hot punk look if you really wanted.

OTHER CHLOE: You said it, not me. But yeah, I think she's doing alright. Rachel always found a way. I just hope she's helping out the other Chloe's out there. We could fucking use it.

_OTHER MAX and OTHER CHLOE's dialogue fades as we see RACHEL and CHLOE sit down on the bench beneath the lighthouse._

CHLOE: Rach?

RACHEL: Chloe?

CHLOE: I'm good. We can go.

RACHEL: We haven't even followed them to the town. You sure?

CHLOE: No, but...I'm happy for her. The other me. This life seems pretty good. The one they have, and the one they'll get to have. I think we made the right choice, not taking over in this timeline. Some other us gets to enjoy it.

RACHEL: You love her. Max. More than me.

CHLOE: More than you? I don't...that's not how I think of it. I've spent so many lives pushing everybody away, being angry, being...fucking sad. But you and Max made me feel like life was worth living again. Not just...you know, not just to be around you or anything, but like...having you there made me want more. Made me want to live, to fucking do anything and everything. You both did that for me.

RACHEL: Chloe…

CHLOE: And yeah, back by the tree...I chose to be with Max. But if there's anything I've learned from all this, it's that time isn't certain. We don't have one right answer out there. Now I'm sure I would've loved being with Max, for the rest of this reality. But I didn't end up there. I'm with you. And...as wild as it is to be traveling through time, as fucking scary as that storm is always gonna be...I love it too. It's the road trip we never got to do.

RACHEL: It's definitely...cooler than what I'd had in mind.

CHLOE: Fuck yeah it is. So yeah, I'm always gonna love Max. And I'm always gonna love you. I can do both. There're a lot of me, right? That'll have to do.

RACHEL: I can make that work.

_CHLOE and RACHEL kiss._

RACHEL: That certainly never gets old.

CHLOE: Well, we have infinite time to practice.

_OTHER MAX and OTHER CHLOE leave the lighthouse, laughing and kissing. OTHER CHLOE stops, looks up towards RACHEL and CHLOE, confused._

OTHER CHLOE: Max, do you see that?

OTHER MAX: Holy shit.

CHLOE: Holy shit.

RACHEL: They can see us?

OTHER CHLOE: Is that what you were talking about before? A butterfly and a deer?

CHLOE: Whoa.

OTHER MAX: Chloe, I think…I think the deer is Rachel.

CHLOE: Do something!

RACHEL: What, prance around?

_RACHEL nods._

OTHER CHLOE: Holy shit. Then who's the butterfly…

OTHER MAX: I always thought it was you…

_CHLOE nods._

OTHER CHLOE: They're here, then. Rachel and…another me?

RACHEL: I think they get it.

CHLOE: Let's go before this gets any harder.

RACHEL: Where?

CHLOE: Somewhere even better.

OTHER CHLOE: Thank you.

CHLOE: Good luck, you two. Have a good life. I love you both.

_CHLOE and RACHEL hold hands and the CURTAIN falls._

**THE END**


End file.
